Coyote
by KTHunter
Summary: Part 3 of the Twilight Child Saga. Raven and Beast Boy are now a couple but not everyone is happy about it. And who is that dark figure lurking in the background?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

This is the 3rd installment of the Twilight Child story arc. Here are the stories so far, in order:

_Twilight Child_

_Deeper_

----_Stair Luge Samurai_ – one shot

_Coyote_

_Nadir_

and coming later ... _Dawn Child_

I hope you enjoy it!

**Author's Notes:**

With deep thanks to my beta-readers: DeTroyes and Dr. Jekyl

The main idea for using the "Coyote" concept was based on an idea that was given to me by fellow fanfic'er DeTroyes. (Take a bow, DT.) "Coyote" and other trickster figures are prominent in Native American lore and are fascinating to read about. This story takes a new perspective on these figures.

This story does involve some Native American spiritual beliefs. I have tried to portray these beliefs as respectfully as possible while still telling a suspenseful story. I have made every attempt to _not_ portray the Native American characters in a stereotypical light. If you notice any inaccuracies, please bring them to my attention. I will do my best to resolve them.

This story arc leans heavily on Teen Titans history from the Marv Wolfman era to the present day Geoff Johns era. For those of you who have not read the earlier stories, I have tried to include some details in my Author's Notes at the end of each chapter. However, if I leave out an explanation, feel free to send me an private message via my profile. I am more than happy to answer any questions.

**Coyote – Chapter 1**

"_So, where do we go from here?"_

The words echoed in her head. Two weeks later, they were still trying to figure that out.

Some things didn't change; at least, on the surface, they didn't. Raven's school was still out for the summer, so the daily training continued. The flying was only part of it, but it was amazing how fast her execution of the Hyk Mar maneuver had improved. There was also the physical training that Cyborg had insisted upon, to keep the muscle tone that her new body possessed intact. And then there was the aikido...and Garfield's acting classes...

It was the tone of the training that had changed.

The sunset vigils continued, but their tone was different, too. Some nights, they were too occupied with talking to each other to watch the actual sun sinking below the horizon...but this night they decided to watch it from the beach below the tower.

Clouds had blown in, and the sky was turning a deep slate gray. It was an evening when the sun was more sensed than seen. The two strolled through the gentle wash of salt water; they were close enough that their hands brushed against each other every few steps.

"Do you think we are ready to demonstrate our new maneuver to Cyborg?" Raven asked.

"I think we could do it tomorrow," he replied. "We just need a name for it. The 'New and Improved Beast Boy Blitz' doesn't mention you, so that's out. How about 'Beauty and the Beast Boy'?

"That still leaves me out," she replied, nudging him with her elbow.

"Was that a joke?"

"Perhaps. But it is not very descriptive of what we're doing."

"Well, if someone calls for it in the middle of a mission, we don't want to give away what we're doing, do we?"

"I suppose not. I am afraid I am not very imaginative."

"Are you kidding? This was your idea. Mostly."

"Suggestion," she said, once more allowing her hand to brush against his knuckles. She shivered at the brief contact; even that small morsel was a balm to her touch-starved soul. She had never felt so bold about reaching out for him as she had during that first long kiss weeks ago. High from nitrogen narcosis at the time, she had had no qualms about asking for his attentions then. After it finally wore off, she still felt the same about him – was still wildly attracted to him – but she had lost that brave edge. She kept looking for it, though.

"Yeah?"

"Let Bart name it when he sees it. He seems to have a particular talent for such things."

"Yeah, like the 'Stair Luge Samurai?' Of which you are now a member?"

"Precisely, " she replied with a blush and a slight bow.

"You're cute when you blush, you know that? We'll need to do it early in the afternoon, though." He strutted just a little for her. "Yours truly has an audition tomorrow evening."

"Audition?"

"Oh, it's a surprise. And it's not a commercial with a talking iguana this time."

"Ah. I was rather fond of the talking iguana."

He brushed a few loose strands of hair off of her face. "The ponytail. That's new. Your hair is really coming back, isn't it?"

She scratched the scalp at the base of the ponytail. "My one vanity. Yes. It is very strange. I was getting used to having shorter hair. I did not realize how heavy it was before." Her voice got quiet. " In my spirit body it weighed nothing."

"I was getting used to the new do, too," he replied. "It made you look...younger." He hesitated.

_Nervous?_ she thought. _There is an unasked question hanging in his mind._

"Which leads me to my next question...ummmmm...is it...is it a problem that I'm younger than you are? Chronologically, anyway."

_That is not the question._

She pursed her lips. "I have not really thought about it. It has never seemed important."

She picked up a tiny shell and rubbed it between her fingers, reading the ridges and infusing them with the same affection she felt for him. She savored the flavor of his signature, that sour-apple Jolly Rancher flavor that marked his presence. Her eyes studied the ever-shifting waves.

"So our age difference doesn't bother you at all?" he asked.

She rolled the shell into her palm and closed her fingers around it. She brought the loose fist close to her chest and rolled her face to him as she stopped walking.

"Garfield, I have spent my entire life fighting demons, cult leaders, thieves, villains of every stripe. A boy half my age wants to...wants me to mother a child that will bring about the end of the world as we know it. The Terminator wants to hang my head in his den as a trophy. Most of the superhero community thinks I belong on the other side of the thin caped line no matter what good I do. I have died and come back to life more times than I can count."

She held out the warmed shell to him. "Do you honestly think that my beloved being two years my junior is going to bother me?"

He took the shell into his palm. "Well, when you put it that way..."

"I must admit that I am somewhat confused. I am so new to this...this kind of relationship. You ask as if you have doubts. I sense confusion in you. I am not entirely sure how you are feeling. What are you thinking? I need to hear it." _I need to hear all of it._

He tucked the shell into his pocket. The open Hawaiian shirt flapped in the warm evening breeze. He shook his head. "No doubts, darlin'. No doubts at all. I guess I was just wondering what _you_ were thinking. Our bodies have been tossed around so much that I guess we're not even the ages we should be any more. You're right. It doesn't matter. And _don't_ worry about never completing 'Girlfriend 101'. You're doing fine."

He slipped his hand into hers as they continued their walk. The energy of that touch telegraphed up her arm and down the rest of her body. Her skin drank it in. That brave edge, that adventurer in her that screamed for attention, grew a little more daring at the contact.

Seagulls and sandpipers scattered in front of them as they moved through the shallow water. Its movement reclaimed sand from their footprints behind them. He broke their silence. "Do you think anyone else has figured us out yet?"

"I think Cassie and Connor concluded there was an 'us' before we did. I am not sure about Bart, but he did see our little... _adventure_ in the chamber. I do not think Tim is concerned one way or the other."

"You left out Vic."

She bit her lip before she continued. "Victor is another matter entirely. I think he is suspicious, but I am not sure he knows the entire truth, even though we all live together." She squeezed his hand. "He is very...protective...of me. And of you. I am not sure he wants to admit it to himself that there is even the possibility of an _us_."

"What makes you say that?"

Foamy surf rolled over their feet and receded, rose and receded. She felt the salty liquid pressing against her arches and her ankles. It cooled the ache that haunted her bones more and more every day. "I do not know. It is rather trite to say that I just have a feeling, but that is all I can say. Perhaps he does not think it makes sense."

"I still try to figure it out myself sometimes. I don't think some of the other former Titans that know us both will believe it. They'll think we make no sense at all."

She halted again, turning to face him while still holding his hand. Her voice trembled. "I do not have a lot of experience with my own feelings, but I have felt that of others for many years. I do know this: Love has its own logic. Sometimes what Love does makes no sense at all in the world of pure logic. But that makes what it does no less valid. No less right." One tiny tear shimmered at the edge of her eye. "It makes no sense at all that a person with my heritage would even try to do good in this world. Does that make it any less right that I do try?" The salty drop escaped down her cheek. "Perhaps...perhaps he thinks that after –"

He traced the moist track with his finger. His words were gentle. "No, no. You do just fine, in my eyes." He brushed her lips with the wetness of the tear. "And right now, mine's the only opinion that counts. Not theirs. I believe it."

He touched her cheek again with the back of his hand and looked deep into her violet eyes. She leaned her face into his hand. He spoke again, his voice low. "I believe in this. Now, c'mon over to your hunka-hunka B.B. love..."

Wrapping his arms around her back, he lifted her off the ground and pressed his lips to hers. She breathed in his scent, that dear scent that most people passed off as wet dog but that she knew as his. It was that scent that made her feel welcome. Safe. His honey-sweet lust sifted through that connection as the tip of his tongue teased her upper lip. Her eyes widened then drifted closed as she sank into that touch. That edge grew a little bolder. Just then, a stiff crimson-and-gold breeze blew past Raven's back and toppled the pair into the wet sand. Gar grunted as he collided with the ground, and she yelped as their faces mashed together.

"Well," she mumbled with a chuckle. She quickly rolled herself onto the sand and landed on her back beside him, allowing their shoulders the briefest of contacts. Her moxie hid behind the clouds once more.

He closed his eyes as he struggled to catch his breath. Silent confusion rose in him like the tide. He reached for her hand once more.

"Yep. Bart knows."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 2

Robin adjusted the focus on his binoculars. "So, we're here to see a new maneuver from the Weekday Warriors?"

Cyborg gave him a look. "Nope. Just Raven and BB. They told me the gist of it, but this is the first time I've seen it."

"What's the name of this little play?"

"That's my job," Bart piped in from behind. "They told me I could name it. Now, watch, Gar's right down there on the beach."

And there he was, with the white stretches of his uniform reflecting the early afternoon sun back at them. His hand shaded his eyes as he scanned the sky.

Robin adjusted the focus again. "You hear the latest on the Black Rose Underground?"

Cyborg glanced at him before returning his eyes to the sky. "Yeah. I did. Sounds like our guy has been banging around all over California lately. I've been keeping a closer eye on Raven lately because of it."

"You think he'll try to get her again?"

"He's left a trail of corpses behind him as long as the Mississippi River in just the past two weeks. At least, we think it's him. The methods are the same, just to a more brutal degree. But none of the victims appear to be the target of any contracts. I've seen the crime scene photographs. Didn't know there was that much blood in a human body."

"Is he accelerating? It's not often a hit man becomes an out and out serial killer."

"Looks like he's feeding more and not worrying about the cash."

"Getting desperate."

"Exactly. So yeah, I think he'll try for her again."

Raven's voice crackled over the radio. "I am ready to begin, Cyborg."

Cyborg smiled at the borderline cheerfulness he heard. "Copy that, witch. Show us your stuff."

"I hope it's better than the Hyk Mar," Bart grumbled.

"Shut up, Bart," Robin and Cyborg said in unison.

A blue cloak swept around the corner of the tower. An outstretched arm guided it towards the green figure ahead of them. Beast Boy raised his own hand as if in greeting.

"This should be interesting," Robin remarked, raising the binoculars to his eyes.

She made a sharp dive towards the hand. Lower, lower, lower she flew until she seemed ready to collide with Beast Boy. At the last moment, he jumped into the sky, twisting his body as he began his animalistic shift. A slender gloved wrist extended to catch the jade-hued rat snake that emerged. His twisting body wound itself around her forearm as she turned to rise into the sky once more.

"That's it?"

"No, Bart," Cyborg sighed. "That was just the pickup. She's not strong enough to carry him in his human form." He crossed his arms and followed the blue bird in flight. "Members of air support carry him like that all the time."

Robin continued to watch through his field glasses as he remarked, "Pretty tricky timing on that pickup, though."

"Uh-huh," Cyborg grunted.

"Must've spent some hours practicing that bit."

"Mmmmm-hmmmmmm."

"Lots of time together."

Bart giggled as Cyborg shifted his weight to his other leg. He eyed Kid Flash for a moment before returning his gaze to the sky.

"Yep," Robin repeated without moving. "Lots of time."

The radio came to life again. "Ready to commence the maneuver, Victor."

"Go for it, witch."

The blue cloak disappeared in a cloud of inky smoke. The cloud hung there, a feathery comma in the depths of the sky. Its twin appeared high above them as the pair materialized once more. The snake unwound itself from her arm. Once clear, it grew into a rhinoceros that aimed itself right for the watching trio.

"Uh, Gar?" Cyborg began.

"Patience, Victor," came her voice again. Was there a hint of a smile there?

She vanished again into the brimstone-etched fog. A sapphire and onyx flower bloomed between them and the gravitationally-challenged rhino. Her back was to them; her arms were outstretched to the sky and the ever-closer falling beast. However, her embrace instead caught (to Robin's eyes) a rather happy-looking koala bear.

A kick into the air propelled her away from the rest of the Titans in a slow, sideways spiral. Gar was singing over the radio waves.

"So, whaddya think, old 10W-40? Fast way to deliver the green dream machine, eh?"

"Now I just need to name it," Bart mused. "Got it! GRALO."

"GRALO?" Robin asked.

"Yeah. Gar Raven Alley-Oop."

"Doesn't 'Alley-Oop' imply some sort of turn?"

Cyborg managed a smile. "Interesting move, greenie. Adaptable. Gives us the element of—"

"—surprise!" Gar called out as his koala from leaped from Raven's suddenly appearing arms onto Vic's shoulder; a puff of smoke trailed after him.

"Gar!" Cyborg yelled. "Witch!"

"There's your turn," concluded Bart.

The green koala wrapped his forearms around Vic's neck. "Aw, Borgy, we're just joshin' ya. I dared her to do it."

Vic just snorted.

"Do you like it?" Raven's soft, crisp speech startled them from behind. Her eyes rested on the fuzzy green lump clinging to Cyborg's shoulder.

"Yes," Robin whispered to himself. "_Lots_ of time."

(break)(break)

She whispered into the ear of the lime parakeet on her shoulder as they walked back to the tower: "Well. Robin knows."

(break)(break)

Another, more distant, pair of binoculars lowered. Shining black eyes, concealed beneath a night-black hood, inspected the empty sky where the dancing pair had been.

Someone else knew now, too.

(break)(break)

A/N: The Hyk Mar is the maneuver that Raven was learning in "Deeper".


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 3

That evening, Gar fairly strutted off the ferry. _Best pitch for a job I've ever done! Can't wait to tell her._

"And I'm too sexy for my car, too sexy for my car, too sexy by far," he sang as he strolled the walkway to the tower. _New gal, new headshots, new commercial shoot, yeah, things are looking up for yours truly._

"And I'm too sexy for my hat, too sexy for my –"

"Gar!" Cassie was shouting from the tower doors.

"Well, you're here early, Ms. Sandsmark. What's—"

"Weird stuff, Gar. You need to talk to her, Gar, she's locked herself in her room and –"

"Who? What?"

"You're thick as a post, you know that? Ra-ven. Your girl-friend. Hello?"

His eyes widened. "What happened?"

"She got into a fight with Con."

"C'mon, I can't ref every argument around here—"

"No, I mean a _fight_. She pushed him down!"

"What? The only thing I've ever seen her fight with is her hair. What on earth—"

"I think she was in a bad mood when she got back from her class. A really bad mood. I think she got in trouble. Then Connor said something about her being a whack-job – that jerk—and she tackled him!"

"That just doesn't happen. She'd rather die than hit somebody." He stopped walking. "Wait. She tackled _Superboy?_ You mean, she _tried?_"

"No. He ended up in the floor. Then she looked at her hands, screamed, and ran for her room. Cyborg followed her and yelled at her the whole way."

They headed for the main tower doors. "That does _not_ sound like our girl. Why –how-"

They entered the tower and found their way to the living area. Superboy and Cyborg were at either ends of the sofa, which was starting to groan beneath their combined weight. Both were silent, chins in hands, eyebrows lowered. Gar could feel the steam pouring out of his best friend's ears.

Connor stared at the floor. "I didn't mean it! I mean, really, it just slipped out!"

Vic muttered, "Stubborn, hard-headed little—"

"Uh, Vic, Cassie told me what happened—"

"Yeah," Cyborg said as he stood up. "And I can't let it continue. Her sensei called and said she was throwing people harder than she should. And now this stunt. She's acting like a—like a –"

"Teenager?" Gar replied with his fists on his hips. "Of course she is, Stone. She may have the mind of an adult, but she's still got some growing pains to go through. _Again_. We don't know what sixteen was like for her the first time. And how'd you like to go through puberty _twice_?"

"Once was bad enough, sprout. But someone needs to—"

"Look, you lug-nut, she doesn't need a lecture right now. Let me handle it."

(break)(break)

He rapped on her door. There was no answer except for some soft, muffled sobs. He rapped again and received a curt "Go away!" in return.

He leaned against the outer door frame and crossed his arms. _Well, she's still in the same dimension as the rest of us. That's one good thing, anyway. Back in the day, she'd be sulking on some rock in Azarath by now, and I wouldn't be able to get to her. At least she stuck around. That's what you call progress._

He raised his hand to knock again and thought better of it. He removed his suit coat and placed it carefully on the floor outside the door. _There's more than one way in,_ he thought. _I just hope she's not afraid of spiders . . ._

He scampered under the door on eight legs. Eight legs became four as a forest-green cat took an assessment of the room. The last fading rays of the evening filtered through the dark bedroom and gave the sad lump in the bed a slight glow. _Yes, the last refuge of the angst-ridden teen_. _Been there many times myself._ His cat-sense told him all he needed to know: _misery, misery, anger, and misery._

He padded over to the bed on velvet paws. _Don't know what good it will do for me to stay low. She'll know I'm—_

"Are you going to lecture me, too?"

Four legs became two as he knelt beside her. _Think happy thoughts,_ he reminded himself. He began reciting a litany of calming mantras in his mind: _Cotton candy, frogs, sunsets, crickets chirping . . . _

"No, Raven. I'm just here to help you cry. Here's your shoulder."

In the growing darkness, he could only see the valleys of her face, but he knew the tears were there anyway. With great care, he reached over to touch her cheek. She rolled over and away from him.

"Leave me."

_Well, she hasn't left the room yet, anyway._

"It's okay to be upset, you know," he said. _And I know how you push everyone away. And we give up too easy. Hard habit to break, I know. But not this time. There's a way to reach you._

He reached again, this time with both arms. She struggled against him with sharp cries as he wrapped them around her shoulders.

"Let me be – let me go," she hissed.

_Love you,_ he thought as loudly as he could, _love you_. But he said nothing. He just held on, firmly enough to hold her down but not enough to hurt her. _Love you still. _ She pulled at his hands, she rolled her shoulders, she kicked her legs into the sheets. _Love you._ Hot tears accompanied the heaving sobs in her chest. He said nothing. _Love you so much._ He just held her to him.

Finally, the struggles stopped. He could feel her back relax. _Well, that rodeo's over. Not sure if she's giving up or if she's exhausted. _

Her limp body sagged into his shoulders. One arm supported her while he lifted himself onto the bed with her. He pulled her into his lap and cradled her head against his neck. Her eyes leaked hot streams onto his shirt. _She doesn't need a loverboy now. She needs a daddy. But I guess I'll have to do._

"Let it out," he finally said. "Just let it all out." He rocked back and forth slowly while he stroked the bridge of her nose with his fingers. Blue shadows faded to gray and to black while she shook in his embrace. _Never really seen her like this before, _he mused, _but I guess she's got to get it out of her system sometime._

The room was completely dark now. Sobs quieted into hard breaths; hard breaths melted into a soft rhythm of a rising and falling chest. Cool fingers found his hand and interlaced with his own.

"I-I am sorry," she said quietly. "I should not have lost my temper."

He ran his fingers through her hair and caressed her scalp. _Blue sky, warm sun, waves on the beach_, he chanted in his head.

"He did not mean to be cruel, did he? Connor does not know –" Her voice trembled, and the rest of her shook with it.

He traced the outline of her cheek in the dark. He could not see her face, but he could feel it beneath his fingers. "No, but that's okay. It's okay to be mad, you know. Everyone gets angry. He _was_ being a jerk. You're allowed. But somehow I don't think that's the only thing that's bothering you. Am I right?"

A mixture of a gasp and a sob squeezed itself out of her. "You are."

"Do you want to talk to me about it?"

"I do not know how."

_Better than a no, anyway. _"Please. You said you'd let me love you, darlin'. This is part of it. I know you hate to talk about--"

"It's not that I do not want to talk about it. It is – I do not – I cannot find the words."

"Is it just too big? Too big to get your mind around?"

She nodded into his neck.

"Ah," he replied. _Maybe that's been the problem all along. Anytime any of us has asked what was wrong, we've always wanted a canned answer to something too big to stuff into a can. Way too big. _ He shifted his arms, which were starting to tingle from holding still for too long. "Well, let's break it down. Talk about bits of it. Then we'll put it together, okay?"

"Ask small questions."

_Now I'm getting somewhere._ "Were you having a bad day, to begin with? Were you hurting again?"

"Quite a bit," she replied.

"Well, that's enough to make anyone grouchy. Are you in pain now? Physical, I mean?"

"I have a headache. That is all."

"Okay, then, we can take care of that. Are you embarrassed by what happened?"

"Mortified. I made a fool out of myself once more."

"And you don't like looking foolish. It's all about the dignity, isn't it? Don't worry. I make an ass out of myself all the time, and I live through it. I'm sure Superboy will live, too. And so will you."

"I felt so _angry_. But it was not just at Connor. It was – the words – I do not know how to handle anger without..."

"Without going to full red alert? Ramming speed? Damn the torpedoes? Fire at will? I mean you did knock down _Superboy_, after all. You'd have to be pretty pissed off to do that."

A faint giggle escaped from her. "I think that is a good way to describe it."

He laughed with her. _Good to laugh about it. I'll think about _how_ she did it later._ "Well, the people in your hometown made you suppress it before. I'm beginning to think that _suppression_ of your emotions and _control_ of your emotions are two totally different things."

"What do you mean?"

_Yeah, what do I mean? I've never sounded this wise before. _"Eh, well, suppression means you just totally smother it and don't deal with it at all. Control means you deal with it. They taught you one without the other." He squeezed her more tightly. "You got a bum deal, kiddo, that's all. Everybody has trouble controlling their feelings. Hell, you've seen me lose control more than once. But they didn't show you how to really get control at all. They didn't prepare you for life after Trigon."

She choked on her reply. "I was not supposed to _have_ a life after Trigon." She was shaking again.

He took several long, slow breaths before continuing. "And I think that's what you're really upset about, m'dear. Everybody thought about _him_. Nobody ever thought about _you_. Even you."

The storm in her roared to life again as his words found their target deep in her heart. He didn't hush her. He didn't calm her. He just let her let it out. A lake of unshed tears poured from her and flooded the room. He just held on and held her tightly. Images of his mother floated in his mind, images of when she had comforted him, kissed his bruises, and sang his hurts away when he was very small. He found that same tuneless song that she had hummed vibrating in his chest and that same warmth she had given him swimming in his heart. And that warmth trickled its way through his skin and into the childlike woman in his arms. And then the squall passed, and her breathing was quiet again.

"You okay?" he asked into the darkness.

"I am feeling...better."

"I think you just needed a good long cry. Maybe we can thank Con for getting you there?" A_nd there will be a lot more of that before she can really get on with things_, he told himself. "Bum deal, kid. They didn't give you any tools for dealing with jerks. Maybe we need to add 'the snappy comeback' to your vocabulary. Just like the movies and the fairy tales." He brushed his lips against her forehead. "Sometimes one good line at the right time will defuse a situation, y'know? Better to laugh it off instead, you think?"

"You have an interesting...wisdom," she replied. He felt her fingers resting against his jaw. "How -- how can you love someone so lost as I am? How can you stand the effort? I am nearly insane."

"Loving you is one of the easiest things I've ever done. And all you needed was a little B.B. cuddle therapy." His lips slid down to the tip of her nose and kissed it. "Which I am more than happy to provide. Besides, being a little _loco_ is part of our job description. They won't let you into the superhero union unless you're certifiab—"

Warm lips meeting his cut him off. Grateful affection seeped out of her and encircled him. _Yes, loving you, it's very easy, _he thought. Almost instinctively, he started to lower her head back down to the bed. _Let me show you how easy--_

She pulled her face back. He could feel that warmth withdrawing back into her, cowering behind her eyes. Her muscles began to tense up again. _Oh. My bad. _ He reached over and flicked on the lamp as he sat back up. The sudden temperature change made him ache inside. _Sitting here and talking in the dark is almost _too_ comfortable,_ he thought._ Go slow, Gar, go slow. Don't get carried away. Don't scare her._

The tension in her eased down when the light came on. She looked back at him, her face a mixture of sadness and apology. Her eyes were tinged with redness, but they were trying to smile at him now. Keeping his arms around her, he helped her to stand on trembling legs. He brushed her hair back behind her ears. _I wish I could get you over this. Can't stick you in a tank every time I—oh, let it pass_.

"Let's take care of that headache. You hungry? I think we missed dinner."

She nodded weakly. "Actually, yes, very."

"Let me take you out. To celebrate, too, 'cause I've got some good news about that audition. We'll go somewhere you'll love. This is San Francisco. There are more vegetarians per square mile here than there are superheroes in New York! It should be easy to find a good place. Maybe we can take Connor to an Indian joint and enjoy watching him force down some curry with extra peppers..."

(break)(break)


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 4

A/N: If you see any Titans' history here that you don't understand, please see the Author's Notes at the end of the chapter.

(break)(break)

The tempo of tower life continued to move and flow over the next few days: perfecting the GRALO, transforming into any small furry animal that would allow Gar to curl up in the empath's lap, getting her used to contact, picking out films for her pop culture education...

"Movie time!" he called out, bowl of popcorn in hand. But she wasn't on the couch. She was nowhere to be seen.

_That's weird. She's usually punctual to a fault._

He carried the bowl with him, munching on his snack all the way. Rapping on her door yielded only silence.

"Rave? You there, hon?"

He pushed the door open. The scent of Nag Champa incense permeated the air of the darkened bedroom. _Empty. And when did she become such a slob?_ The bed was unmade, and bits and pieces of her uniform were scattered around the room. A glove here, a boot there. _She must have been in a hurry after combat practice today. I must be rubbing off on her._

The usual stack of books on the desk was missing. _My little bookworm. Must be in the library._

And there she was, head quite literally buried in a book, fast asleep. Her MP3 player earpiece hung loosely on the side of her face. Its tiny speaker was silent. With great care, he moved it from her ear to the table. _Batteries are dead. __She must be getting ready for next semester. _The open book under her left hand was a history of Native American peoples. _Catching up on the new family tree, I see_. Under her right was a mostly blank sheet of paper; a pencil was resting between her fingers. _Notes? Practicing American grammar? She was shocked when she first found out that Azarathian comma rules aren't exactly what we use … _The title "What I Want to be When I Grow Up" was printed in her neat hand across the top of the page. _Must be practicing for one of those dumbass end-of-summer essays_. _I'll bet she never had to write one of those --_ Curious, he brushed her hair out of the way. _What does she want to be . . . maybe a veterinarian? Could use a physical-- _

Her answer was a single word:

_Alive_.

His mouth twisted at the sight of that one word. He reached down and stroked her hair. _For her, that one thing might be the hardest thing of all to be._

He just breathed over her for a moment. _Time to steal another smooch_. He rested his lips gently against her temple.

She stirred. _She feels me over her_. He gently lifted her face off the page; a deep red line marked her cheek where it had drifted off the book. Her eyes opened as he leaned her face into his chest.

"Well, hello, sleepyhead," he said. "Did you have a good nap?"

She rubbed her cheek in that groggy just-woke-up fashion that was so strange on her face. "I think I fainted," she replied. Her words slurred their way out of her mouth.

"Bad pain moment?" he asked, using their code phrase for the attack of old pains that seemed to come and go with the tides.

She nodded and winced as he tried to help her to stand.

"Well, I've got an empath-sized bottle of aspirin downstairs with your name all over it if you—"

She doubled over, clutching her side and hissing through clenched teeth. He caught her before she could hit the floor. His look of concern was replaced by alarm. The communicator was in his hand before he knew he had picked it up. _I need help on this one._

"Vic!" he yelled. "Vic, come in!"

Cyborg's voice came back from somewhere in the garage. "I read you. What's up, green-genes?"

"Meet me in the infirmary ASAP. We have a sick bird on our hands."

"On my way."

He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the elevator. She was conscious but not completely; sweat poured off her forehead, and every step he took produced a low moan from deep within her chest. _Reminds me of what happened when we first met Charlie,_ he thought, walking as fast as he dared. _Why does this keep happening? And why is it getting _worse

Cyborg was already there, waiting for him. He set her down on one of the beds as Vic started to hover over both of them.

"What happened?"

"I found her in the library. She'd passed out already, and when I helped her up, she started to fall again. She's in pain, Vic."

"Injured?"

"No, remember what she said about pains she's cured staying with her? I think they're starting to resurface." His fingers traced a path across her forehead. "I think they've been trying to for a while."

Cyborg looked at Raven, then Gar, then Raven again. "Can you hear me, witch?"

She grunted a reply and opened her eyes long enough to plead silently with him for help. Her knees curled up to her chest.

"What hurts? Can you tell me where?"

"Everywhere," she hissed, and even that hiss was with great effort.

He looked at Gar. "I'm not sure what to do. If this were regular pain we'd just take her over to St. Luke's –"

"That's the last place an empath needs to be: a hospital. That'll just make it worse."

"Let's see if Doc Rovin does house calls."

"What about Charlie? He might know how to handle this."

"He's a time zone away from here, but I can give him a call. See if he has any advice."

The animals buried in his DNA could sense the agony boiling through her. _This has got to stop. It has to._ Leaning over her, he placed her hand against his chest. His memories rewound to the canyon and replayed the pain she'd had there. He spoke to her, hoping his words would sneak past the pain. He could hear Vic's voice on the phone in the background.

"I'm still here," he whispered. "Feel me. I'm here." He tried to replace the gnawing worry in his gut with the sheer affection that he thought might help; fear was only going to make things worse for her. _When she's like this, she can't shield herself; she's wide open._ He had spent enough time with her to know that fact too well. _Another reason why a hospital is a really bad idea._

"Okay, Charlie, okay. See you then. We'll do that." He hung up. "We're in luck. He's in San Diego for a conference. He's arranging a chopper flight here and should be with us in about three hours."

"_Three hours?_ What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"He's calling Doc Rovin himself with some recommendations. _He'll_ be here in half an hour with some painkillers."

"Did he say what might work for this?"

"Not to me. As long as it's not more of that joy juice he gave her last time. I don't trust that stuff."

(break)(break)

The report Cyborg had been waiting for from S.T.A.R. labs on that very joy juice laid on his mind like the weight of ten T-shaped towers.

_I asked them for an analysis right after we got them out of that hyperbaric chamber. Still waiting on it. Still waiting on what else it might do to her. And I won't let him use it again until I know more about it. That Compound 27 is pretty nasty._

He watched Gar watching her. _Neither of us can stand to see her like this. But what is going on with him?_

His organic brain tapped into his electronic circuits automatically, replaying old situations, times when others had acted like Gar. So protective, to the point of being fierce. Like Wally. Gar wasn't quite there yet, but . . .

_Like Wally. Oh, God. Wally. Not again._

Her moans were more intense now; they were starting to melt into low screams. _Doc had better get here soon. I can't take this. It's like watching someone die._

(break)(break)

"I don't think I've ever seen anyone soak up that much morphine before it kicked in," Doc Rovin observed as he checked her pulse again. He walked out the door to join Vic and Thunder Horse. "Especially with no visible wounds. Tell me about this again? All this sword'n'sorcery stuff always gets me confused." He leaned against the wall outside the infirmary where they had gathered for a hasty conference.

Charlie crossed his arms and sighed. "It is no 'sword and sorcery', sir, I assure you. To me, it is very natural. She is a healer. She takes on the pains of others. But they are staying with her, and by the looks of things, intensifying." He turned to Cyborg; bitterness stung the edge of his voice. "What are you people doing to my cousin? These are no ordinary pains she's been taking in. She's not some kind of machine, you know. She wasn't meant for this kind of abuse."

"I agree with that," Dr. Rovin nodded. "Next time, I'm not sure the morphine will keep up with that level of pain."

Cyborg took a deep breath before answering. He looked through the door at the empath, who was by now deep in a drug-induced stupor. "Doc, Doc, both of you, trying to stop her from healing is like telling Kid Flash to stand still. We couldn't stop her if we tried. If we're out on mission –"

"Maybe she doesn't need any more missions." Charlie's eyes narrowed. "She is just a child. She won't live long enough to grow up, at this rate."

(break)(break)

He could hear them talking; even with their hushed tones, he could feel the sharpness in Thunder Horse's voice. That one little word in her fastidious handwriting on that one little sheet of paper flashed through his brain: _Alive_. He shook his head. _What do we do now? This is all she knows. This is all she has._

That stale, sterile hospital smell of the infirmary made his heart hurt. _She should be upstairs now, sleeping through the credits of the bottom half of a double feature. Not here._ He crouched down to the floor and shifted into a cat. The top of the medical bed was an easy jump from the floor. Curling up next to her and purring felt as natural as holding her hand. _Right now, it's all I can do._

(break)(break)

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't take her with me right now," Charlie challenged, his nose inches away from Cyborg's.

_I do not like this guy gettin' in my face._ "She belongs with us. We're her family. She's got no place else to go."

Dr. Rovin held up his hands and slipped through the door. "I'm checking on my patient. Not my fight."

"I'm her family, too," Thunder Horse retorted. "Why else would you call me?"

"Because . . . because I don't know any other empaths. I don't know what else to do for her." Steel shoulders hunched in defeat. "I don't know what to do."

The medicine man backed off. "And you hate to see one who is like your sister suffer," he replied in low tones. Pointing at the sleeping cat with his chin, he continued. "And so does your other friend, it seems."

Steel finger rubbed against metal chin. _I know Gar's a caring guy, but this is a bit much. One human eye blinked. It's like peanut butter and mayonnaise. They just don't fit. Even if she doesn't know what she's doing, she must be doing it. He chewed his lip. Maybe it's the pain, making her want someone to care –_

He steered the doctor down the hall to where he knew he was out of range of his changeling friend's hearing. "Maybe you should take her, at least for a little while."

_Plus, there's what she said about the BRU leader, about how he wanted her to join him._ Even his infrared eye twitched at the thought. _She needs to be someplace safe while we finish the investigation; he may try for her again._

"Why the change of heart, Stone?" He leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

"Girl's not had a vacation in – well, don't know if she's ever really had an extended one. You're right, she needs a break. She's been going on about maybe going to go visit you, anyway. She's got about six weeks before classes start up again. What do you say to this? She goes with you for a month and gets some rest." _And Gar gets clear if he needs to._ "She's an adult, really. She can decide what she wants to do once she's recovered."

Charlie regarded him with a thoughtful frown. He stood up straight and offered his hand. "Deal. Tonight?"

Steel gently enclosed flesh and sealed the bargain. "Before she wakes up, I'd say. So she can wake up someplace peaceful. Can you get her out on the chopper?"

A nod: "Karen and I can get her whatever she needs. Don't bother packing anything."

"Done. One condition, though."

"Being?"

"No Compound 27. At least until you hear from me."

"But that may be the only thing—"

"Non-negotiable, Doc." And I hope she'll forgive me for this later.

"All right. But what about Beast Boy? He seems kind of . . . attached."

"You let me handle him." He handed Raven's tiny communicator to Charlie. "Give this to her so she can call me if she needs to bite my head off."

"_Pilamaya aloh_," Charlie replied, accepting the small device. "Thank you very much."

(break)(break)

A/N:

Doctor Rovin is the one who 1) did Bart's knee replacement and 2) took the tissue samples of everybody in BEAST BOYS AND GIRLS. Those tissue samples are the ones stolen by the BRU in "Deeper". I think both DeTroyes and Pliskin MacReady on the RBSU forum have both pointed out that the face of Dr. Rovin in the comic book is based on Geoff Johns' face.

If you've not followed the Titans since the 80's, I guess I have some 'splainin to do about Wally.

When Raven first re-formed the Titans, Wally West (Kid Flash then, Flash now) did not want to join. But somehow, he found a good reason to join. That reason wore a blue cloak and meditated a lot. The Justice League member Zatanna later told him that she had manipulated him into falling in love with her to pull him onto the team. She had done so out of desperation, even though she knew she could never return that love because of her required emotional suppression. He has loved her and hated her ever since, and lots of other heroes have had problems trusting her after that incident as well.

But she had her own reasons for it, as were revealed in Legends of the DC Universe #18 . . . and I'll talk more about that later.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 5

They were on the beach again, but something was different. His skin was the color of flesh, and his hair was a sandy blond. She had seen him this way only once before, when the Zookeeper's attack had temporarily removed his powers and his green hue. It had left him with blue eyes then. Only those eyes, those warm green eyes, were the same now. Only the warmth of his arm around her waist was the same.

"So how do you prefer me?" he asked. "Do you like me like this? Or do you prefer Mr. Green-Genes?"

Her only answer was to bury her head into his chest and to wind her fingers into the hair on his arms. Her only answer was her silent request for touch, denied to her for so long...

His hands caressed her face, and she felt the heat of them on her cheeks. The sun was so bright, too bright. She closed her eyes against its glare, but still its light crept behind her eyelids.

She opened her eyes and blinked against a vibrant ray of sunshine that was crossing her body; motes of dust danced across it. She was surprised to find herself lying down in a bed and not standing on the beach. And she was alone. Fighting a wave of disorientation, she shaded her eyes from the invading sunlight.

"Welcome back to the world, sleepy-girl!" The sudden cheerful spurt of words made her jump. Not alone, then. _I didn't feel anyone else in the room! How? Where am I?_ Her eyes squeezed shut in realization. _Charles. You gave it to me again, didn't you? That drug. That damnable drug._

Her eyes followed the sound to its source: a petite blond woman seated at the foot of her narrow bed. Raven shifted her head to see her features outside of the harsh glare of the sunlight and was met with a spinning room. She clutched the sheets of the bed in a vain attempt to slow the world down.

"Whoa, there, sweetie," the lady warned her. "You've been asleep since you got here. Take it slow."

Raven found her jaw was stiff when she tried to speak. "Who?"

The woman crossed the room to close the sun out with the curtains. "I'm Karen. Karen Thunder Horse. Your cousin Charlie's wife. I guess I'm sort of your cousin-in-law." Karen moved the chair closer to her and sat down. "You're at our ranch. I thought you might be waking up just about now, Raven. Charlie's told me so much about you. Glad to meet you at last."

Awareness was returning to her body, one piece at a time. She studied Karen with wary eyes. _My empathy is shut off,_ she thought, _but this one seems to wear her feelings on her face. She seems kind, concerned. But I do not know her. And I feel too weak to move through the dimensions to get home, from wherever this is._

Her mouth was dusty, and her tongue was heavy. Her jaws clicked as she tried to speak.

"H-how did I –"

"Don't talk yet, sweetheart. You're still worn out. Charlie brought you here early yesterday morning, and you were zonked out. Been asleep ever since. It's late in the afternoon now, so you've slept away the better part of two days. Here." She offered Raven a glass of water. "Sip slow. I'll bet you're thirsty. Let me help you—" She adjusted the pillows to help her charge to sit up. Raven's back ached from too many hours of dreaming.

_Garfield?_ she asked silently. _Where are you? Why aren't you here? Victor?_

Her strength began to return as she sipped the water. "My friends – I need to speak to – to—" _I'm not sure what she knows, what name to ask for -- _ "Victor?"

"I'm sure Charlie will let them know that you're on the mend. Right now it's just you, me, Charlie, and the dog. Old Bill. Hungry? Charlie tells me you're a veggie-lover. I'll never understand you Californians, but I may be able to rustle up something for you." She touched Raven's hand. "If you don't need me for a minute, I'll run to the kitchen –"

"Phone?" _Garfield. I need you._

The bright look in her light green eyes faded a bit. "Sorry, honey. Doctor Charlie's orders. No phone for a while. Charlie will explain it all to you in a bit. Just hang tight."

She left the bewildered young empath alone with her thoughts.

(break)(break)

"Do you love me?"

The familiar voice behind Beast Boy was quiet but steady. He turned to face the tiny column of midnight blue, her face concealed by her hood. The top of a thigh flashed warmly at him from above the top of a boot. He crossed the floor to her.

"Yes, I do."

Two gloved hands touched the rim of the hood and pushed it back from her face. Her _old_ face. Steel-blue eyes shone at him instead of the violet ones that he had come to expect; the face he had first met years ago gazed at him. She was taller. Her eyes were more distant, more almond-shaped. But that eternally bored expressionless face seemed...frightened.

"Do you love _me_?" she asked again. Her voice was that older, deeper voice that he remembered from so long ago.

Ok, now, Gar, you're dreaming. Or she's talking to you in a dream. Or she's watching the dream. Unless the morphine keeps her locked in her head. Don't know. But treat it as if it's real.

"Yes, I love _you_, too. You are still you."

That smile – even on her former face, _especially_ on her former face – was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

Her lips moved again. "Wake up, Gar." But she was speaking in a masculine voice.

_Huh?_

He was jarred awake by hands shaking him. Bart.

"Wake up, Gar. You're talking in your sleep."

Gar sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. He felt stiff. _Must have been in a form too long. Sore._ He looked down at himself. _Must've turned back into human in my sleep. I hope I didn't push her off the—_

He finally looked around. He was in his own room, in his own bed.

"How did I get here? I was in the infirmary – with -- with –"

"With who? It's morning. Early. I just got here a little while ago. There's nobody here but us."

"Where's Raven?"

"Cyborg said Charlie took her. He wouldn't tell me where –"

"What? That son of a—where's Vic?"

(break)(break)

"Charles?"

Her voice entered the room before she did. She wrapped her hand around the frame of the door and peered into the room. She could sense no presence there, but then again she did not know when she would be able to feel others again.

Her head was a balloon bobbing at the top of her neck. As she walked, she only remotely felt the smoothness of the wooden floor beneath her bare feet. Her eyes scanned the study. Empty.

She clutched the wooly afghan closer around her shoulders; the contact of the coarse material soothed her somewhat rumpled state of mind. One foot eased into the room, then the other.

_Who are you, Charles? Who are you, really?_

A low ceiling made the room feel smaller than it really was. The scent of sweet tobacco and old leather hung on the air. Their mingled essence curled between hulking bookcases that stretched from the braided rugs to the cedar beams that braced the ceiling. Two glass display cases flanked a stone fireplace at one end of the room while a heavy oak desk presided over the opposite end.

Raising one hand to touch the edge of a bookcase, she noticed a slight tremor in her fingers. She allowed them to explore the grain of the wood surrounding neatly organized volumes : books on abnormal psychology, archaeological digs around the world and Native American lore. She could almost hear their pages whispering to her of the different faces of Charles Thunder Horse. Books, her oldest and often her only friends, almost always opened their hearts to her, not only revealing their own contents but sometimes the inner workings of their readers.

_It's coming back, it's coming back to me._

_Courage_, they whispered. _Knowledge. Hope._

Her fingers trailed along the spines of the books; they made a soft thump-thump-thump that was punctuated by the only other audible sound in the study: the tic-toc-tic-toc of a brass clock resting on the mantle above the room's fireplace. The cold hearth, a gaping hole in the timbered walls, had its own song that blended with that of the books: S_adness_. _Regret_. She wrinkled her nose. Those somber notes in the cozy face of the room reminded her of the stench of curdled milk.

Creaking floorboards interrupted even her light steps as she continued her stroll down the line of shelves. Photographs graced the walls between them. Smiling faces. Younger versions of Charles and Karen, in a black tuxedo and a white dress, surrounded by happy friends. Black and white replicas of Charles wearing an Army uniform and a serious expression.

One more photograph, its worn edges beneath a protective shield of cedar, caught her eye. The glass in its frame reflected her pale features as she scrutinized these new faces. That of a child, same eyes, same nose, as Charles, gazing up with reverence at an older form of himself. That of a snowy-haired man with snapping black eyes, a wrinkled hand resting on the child's head as if in blessing.

_Grandfather Thunder Horse? _she wondered.

Her fingertips traced the edges of the gnarled wooden frame. _Much joy here. How he must have loved him. _But there was an undercurrent of something else. Old sorrows from years past had soaked into the wood and mixed with those joys. Bygone passions were Braille beneath her probing fingers. _Guilt_, the wood moaned.

"Guilt?" she asked the murmuring room.

"Awake at last, Dawn Child?"

She gasped as she spun around, finding her cousin an arm's reach away. "Charles!"

"Sorry to have startled you. You must not be used to being surprised like that."

She blinked at him, not sure what to say. The word _guilt_ still bounded between her ears. She tuned out the sighing of the pages and drew herself up on her toes. She rested her heels back on the ground and offered him a questioning glare.

"You must be confused as to why you woke up here."

"Confused is a good way to describe it, yes. I know I am at your home. I have met your wife. But I do not know why I am here."

Charlie wandered over to his desk and selected a pipe from the rack there. He cradled its pitted bowl in his palm and traced its rim with his forefinger. "You were very ill, little sister. Your friends thought it wise for you to...to take a break."

Pulling the afghan closer about her shoulders, Raven crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "Without asking me," she observed while jutting out her chin.

"You were not exactly available for consultation at the time," he replied, still fingering the pipe. "Please, please, feel welcome in our home. There is plenty of rest for you here. Recover from your pain."

He replaced the pipe on the stand. Circling the desk, he reached for an envelope resting on the paper blotter. "Your friend Victor asked me to give this to you. He said that if you get angry, blame him." He laughed heartily as he handed her the envelope. "He explains it even better than I can."

Green bills spilled out of the envelope as she removed the note.

(break)(break)

_Hey witch –_

_Hope you're feeling better and that you're not too pissed off with me right now. The gang sends their love and hopes you're ok. Get some rest, willya? We'll come and get you in a few weeks. You deserve some time off. I've sent some walkin'-around money so you can get some clothes. Go get a cowboy hat or something. We kept all your gear here, so don't play mistress of magic for a while. I'll talk to you soon._

_Love ya_

_Vic_

(break)(break)

The tips of her fingers tingled as they pinched the edges of the page. The worry woven into the paper told her so much more than the written words could.

"My communicator?"

"Still at the tower, Raven. And I've decided you don't need to call them. Not for a while. Get your strength back before you deal with them again."

He picked up the fallen bills, jogged them into a neat stack, and handed them to her. She finally accepted them and replaced them in the envelope.

"I want to use the phone. I want to talk to Garfield," she said flatly. "Now." Her hands were beginning to tremble.

"Not just yet, little one. You need to rest."

"I want him to know I am fine, at least." The trembles became deep shivers as she felt anger rise in her face. _I want to let him know I didn't just leave him. I just found him._

"You're getting excited, child. Go lie back down."

_So tired of this. Of being directed._ The afghan tumbled off her shoulders as her hands started forming the gestures to move her through the dimensions home.

"No, no, you're too weak to—"

Her knees buckled underneath her as the little strength she had regained that day escaped her. Charlie rushed over to catch her, to take her back to her little room.

_Too weak, too weak, beloved, _she thought. _Why didn't you come with me? Why no word from you?_

_Because_, the more assertive part of her brain barked at her, _your dear father-figure Victor found out. And now you know what he feels about it._

_Why, why? Why can't I have a moment's peace? Why can't I love someone without everyone else interfering?_

_Why?_


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 6

With trembling hands, she read Victor's handwritten note again in the dim light of her small room. The paper murmured the anxiety that had flowed through him as he planted words on it.

She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth until it ached. Her body drew itself up as small as possible, crumpling the note clutched in her hand. _So you don't believe it's real_. _I know why you sent me away._ She balled her hands into fists, and the sound of mangled paper scraped her ears. The buzz of life on the ranch was blurred and flawed now. Fissures ripped through the warm circle woven around her, as if in response to her grief.

"Is this not real?" she spat out between locked teeth. Her eyes burned with stinging salt as she lost her battle with frustration. "Damn you, Sebastian. And damn your father, for doing this to me. For giving me a curse I'll never control. _Every_ time I think I've got some kind of hope, you take it away. Wallace. Richard. And now... I'll never know if someone's love for me is real, will I? Why? Why did you do this?"

Burning fingers shredded Victor's letter and hurled the flakes of paper onto the floor. "Why?" she sobbed. "Why did you do this to me, Blood? Why, Azar? Why, Trigon?"

She sank back into the chair, her hair bound between her fingers.

"Why am I this?"

"Why?"

(break)(break)

Days washed over her as she recovered her strength once more. Long hours stretched out in an ocean of time as she tried to adjust to life outside the rhythm of the tower. The ranch had its own rhythm, which had been interrupted by her sudden arrival. The disrupted flow adjusted around her and continued once more as Karen took her under her wing, bought her new clothes, showed her the proper way to ride a horse, and somehow continued to hide the presence of any communications equipment whatsoever.

A week of brilliant sunsets melted away, and there was no word from the tower. A week of landscapes touched with a crimson and tan paintbrush, and there was only silence from the west.

She had half a mind to reach into the distance with her powers to find any trace of her beloved, but the other half restrained her, remembering the nightmarish results of every other time her subconscious had taken that effort over.

Parked on the front porch, she reached over to scratch Old Bill behind the ears. A long, sloppy tongue rolled out the side of his mouth, and he panted happily in the late evening shadows.

"Maybe I was too insane for him, after all," she confessed to Old Bill.

(break)(break)

The blanket of night settled over the ranch. One lone figure joined the ticking of the clock over the fireplace in invading the hush of the house. He hovered in the study on silent feet. The soft light of the ever-lit lamp spilled from the corner of the room and lapped at the edges of his shadow-clad body.

One bare hand reached for the worn wood of the frame that the girl had stroked with her fingers. Shining black eyes reflected in the glass between the creases of the images of the old man and the young boy.

_I miss that man_, the dark figure hissed to itself. _I miss what he was. What he meant. Without him, I am so alone. _

Those obsidian orbs turned to the photograph on the table nearby, so new that the corners were still sharp. The Dawn Child astride a horse, mouth drawn into a tight frown of focus; even a simple ride in the sun seemed a serious venture to her. Quiet pools of violet seemed to study him right back from behind the safety of the photo's gloss. At least they seemed quiet on the surface, but beneath...beneath...

_Soon, I won't be alone any more._

He caressed the frame again. Traces of her apprehension and wariness lingered there. He savored their flavor as the tic-toc-tic-toc of the mantel clock counted a gentle cadence of minutes into the otherwise silent room.

The hulking form of Old Bill bounded up next to him. His long tail beat the air with delight. The figure scratched him behind the ears and whispered a hoarse _Pilamaya aloh _to the eager canine. Then the dim shape waded through the edge of the light and slipped out of the study.

_Not quite as satisfying as dread. But it will do. For now._

(break)(break)

A/N: The Brother Blood incident is detailed in the TPB "Teen Titans Volume II: Family Lost".


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 7

" . . . and when I woke up, she was gone. Charlie took her, but I don't know where. His address isn't even on the internet, so I can't find her. And she's not answering her communicator." Gar's agitation was strangling him.

"Well," Superboy said as he rubbed his chin, "don't you two have some kind of psycho-link? Seems like you would."

"You mean _psychic_ link? Sometimes, I think so. But I'm not picking anything up."

"Man, that's messed up." Connor ran thick fingers through his hair. "Look, with my hearing, I couldn't help but hear every word you said to her that night. You know, the time we had our little tiff. Dude, you can't talk to someone like that unless you love them." He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and removed a picture from it. He fingered the edge of the photograph. "And I don't mean googly-eyed puppies and kittens and moonlight and magnolia kinda love. I mean deep down in your blood and bones and guts kinda love." He sighed and held out the picture he was holding. "For what it's worth, buddy, I'm on your side. Cyborg is so wrong on this."

"You think it's real?"

"I know it is."

Connor pressed the picture into his hands and walked away. Gar studied the fuzzy image. _He must have taken it with his cell phone while we weren't looking_. It was her, in the red dress, during that fiasco they called a first date. One slender finger was resting against his lips, and she was almost smiling. He closed his eyes. _What had she said? We were talking about Murphy's Law. And how she was trying to make me smile._

He wandered the rest of the island's perimeter, halting every now and then to gaze at the picture.

_We both know that some things don't matter, not when you've seen what we've seen, done what we've done. What did you say? Love has its own logic. It may not make sense. But it doesn't have to. _

_She was trying to make me smile. Do you know why I love her, Vic?_

_Because she makes me laugh. She makes me really, really laugh. Not to use it as a mask for hiding what I really feel. _

_Because I can't hide what I really feel from her, anyway._

_Besides, she _likes_ the way I smell. I don't meet someone like that every day._

He drew the other pictures he'd found from his shirt pocket. One was tattered and bent, rescued from the remains of the old New York tower. It was an image from long before Trigon had taken her over, maybe from when the team first formed. It was one of the few pictures she had allowed to be taken of her then, maybe by Donna. At least, it was one of the few with her hood down. Her face had been softer, rounder then. There was steel and vibrancy in those deep blue eyes. Her eyes were still blue. She wasn't smiling, but her face told a story of hope.

The next picture was night to the previous one's day. It was a black-and-white print of a video monitor image, taken not long before she had disappeared, not long before that long nightmare with her father. She probably didn't know about this picture; she never would have allowed it to be taken. That magnificent hair was thinning out. Those blue eyes smoldered above haggard hard cheekbones. She wasn't smiling, and her face was devoid of hope. _It's like she was already dead,_ he thought._ She wore her hood all the time after that, like she really was a ghost._

His face contorted with the memory. _We kept telling you we'd help you, but we never did, did we? Like we didn't want to deal with it, deal with you. But you never complained about it, ever. I'm sorry._

_I'm so, so sorry. Because now I know what really killed you, then. And it wasn't just your father. You died because . . . _He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, realizing they were wet. The rest of that thought twisted in his gut. _And now that I know you better, I'm really sorry. It's like we were always scared of you, even when you weren't fighting _him

_But something's changed. I'm not scared. Not now. I can't tell you why, but there is a reason. _

_Arjh-no-ree_, a memory whispered into his brain.

I wish I knew what that meant. Arjh-no-ree. Something happened with that guy, Raven that BRU guy. I wish I could remember what I saw. I don't know what or why, but it told me something. And because of it, I'm not scared.

He held all three photos in front of him at once like a hand of cards. Like three different women, but all the same. And the most recent picture was the youngest image of them all.

He stopped at a bush that shaded the crest of the hill. Its familiar aroma halted his steps. _Rosemary. _He slipped the photographs into his shirt pocket. The tiny shell she had given to him on the beach rattled against his fingernails. He drew back his hand at the roughness of it. Then he ran his fingers through the tiny green blades of the bush, bruising them slightly to release their oils. He brushed his hands against his cheeks and his nose, breathing in the woodsy perfume. Shivers cascaded down his spine. He held his fingers in front of his face for what seemed like hours, reliving the smell of her hair. The memories that the scent awoke in him...recent memories...

_Come home. Come home now._

(break)(break)

He found Vic at the kitchen table, alone. The same table where the three of them shared their meals through the week, just them alone. Where they made fun of her because she ate rabbit food. Where she made faces at Cyborg's Dagwood Special Sandwiches, piled high with glistening meat. Where they talked about how their days had gone and how tomorrow might be even better. Where he and Vic were finally getting her to open up to them.

Where they had forged their little family.

"Tell me where she is."

"No, Gar. We've discussed this before. She needs the rest. And so do you."

"Why do I need a freakin' break? And why have you separated her from everyone she knows? She's all alone out there. Tell me where she is."

"She's with Charlie, so she's not alone."

"Like he knows how to help her. She needs _our _help. She needs _my_ help. Not some stranger's!" He pulled the pictures out of his pocket and threw them down on the table. The shell bounced out with them and clattered onto the floor. His finger stabbed at the haggard picture of her. "Look at the picture, Vic. Look at it! This is the picture you showed me before her father got her that time. Look at it and tell me what really killed her back then."

He shoved the image into Cyborg's face. A silvery hand pushed Gar's shoulder back as gently as it could to avoid the fury shaking in his fist.

"We all know what did it –"

"No, you don't. But I'll tell you what happened. She didn't even have to tell me. I really _looked_ at this for once, and I really _remembered_ what happened. She starved to death. Lack of food, lack of touch, doesn't matter. She starved to death, Stone." He squeezed his eyes shut and shivered. When he opened his eyes, they were rimmed with tears. "Do you really want that to happen again? Because it could."

"I know we don't want to go through that again. I sure know she doesn't want to. But are you sure of what's going on here? You sure it's _you_ feeling this way?"

"What're you getting at?"

Cyborg crossed his arms and lowered one determined eyebrow. "Remember Wally?"

"Wally, Schmally. That was a long time ago. She was desperate to get him on the team and didn't know any better." His voice was getting louder. "She does now. She is _not,_ I repeat, _not_ manipulating me. This is for real, Cyborg."

"You're my best friend, B.B. I don't want to see you hurt like he was."

"And, like always, nobody cares about _her_." The flat side of his fist rammed into the table in front of him. "Do you? Do you care about her at all?"

Cyborg was silent. One brown eye closed.

"Why are you doing this?" Beast Boy demanded.

A shiny fist whipped through the air and into the table. A crater formed in the target area, and a crack whipped through the wood and metal. Two clear-cut halves of table tumbled to the ground. The sound of them collapsing into the floor echoed through the ground level of the tower and died away before Vic answered.

"Because, damn it, Gar, I love her too!"

(break)(break)

A/N: Raven's eyes weren't always violet! They were blue in her old body.

The "before" and "after" pictures explained: The "before" and "after" refer to events that took place before the "Terror of Trigon" incident, when her father fully took her over. Her face changed from a soft and slightly round look (even though she always had high cheekbones) to a very eerie, haggard look right before the Terror of Trigon took place. The takeover was actually very long in coming, as she absorbed more and more pain and endured more and more torture on their many missions. When Wally really started to hate her, she really went downhill. There is a scene in "Terror of Trigon" where Vic and Gar are looking at the "monitor" picture and discussing how much her face had changed over time.

"Donna" is Donna Troy, the Wonder Girl of the 80's era. She is now known as Troia. Her "day job" was that of a freelance photographer.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 8

Raven wandered into the room at the end of the hall in the long, low house on strengthening legs. Sensing generations of bare feet that had worn paths into the wooden floor, she absently fingered the soft drawstring purse tied to her belt loop. A gift from Karen to hold her "walking around" money, it bounced off her thigh as she walked. Old Bill followed on her heels, his ears perking up. She reached down to scratch him between the eyes, and the dog grunted contentedly. She found Karen there, bent over a small table with a disassembled rifle and a bottle of Hoppe's. The air smelled of Arsenal's favorite cologne – gun oil.

"C'mon in, sweetie," Karen called to her. "Looks like Old Bill has a new best friend. Just getting in the day's chores. This may not be an actual working ranch, but I've still got to keep the place up, and it keeps me on my toes. Monday's laundry day. Tuesday I clean the stables. Wednesday's, I walk the fence lines. Looking for varmints. Coyotes and foxes. And Thursday," she continued as she ran a wire brush down the barrel of the firearm, "is the day I clean my guns."

Raven's eyes widened at the rifle's presence as she tugged at the stiff collar of her new denim shirt, complete with embroidered daisies on the front pocket. While she was not completely ignorant of such weapons, thanks to Roy, they were not exactly her area of expertise. Azarathian pacifism and ammunition did not mix very well. She watched Karen's easy movement as she cleaned it, as if she had always known how to handle such things. Her arms were bare for once; her black tank top tucked down into the top of the fatigues that she wore as she worked around the ranch. A tattoo on her left arm winked at the young empath. A long dragon, inked in lavender and green with a gray mist wound about it, snaked down Karen's arm.

Karen caught her staring at the image. "Got this one before I married Charlie. I get it re-inked every few years or so. It's my favorite, anyway."

Raven merely replied, "Nice work." Raven's fingers brushed the small of her own back, remembering the image etched in her own skin.

_There's a story behind this lady, _she thought. _Not the one I got the impression of when I borrowed her clothes the first time we were here. This one is far more intriguing._

She explored the walls of the room, away from the rifle, which were covered with various pieces of desert-themed artwork, painted in the scarlets and tans that she was becoming attached to. One in particular drew her to it: two women, their faces stricken with grief, hovering over a deeply wounded man whose mouth was drawn into a yawning 'O'. One woman was hacking off handfuls of her hair with a knife. She fixed her eyes on the image for many long minutes, getting so close that her nose almost touched the glass of the frame.

She pointed to the painting. "Karen, what is happening in this picture?"

Charlie's words snuck up behind her from the door. "That, Dawn Child, is called 'Death Song.' One of our local artists did that one for me." She turned around to face him as he leaned against the door frame. He lounged in a faded pair of jeans and a soft blue and gray flannel shirt. "The dying man is singing his death song, his last words, maybe a prayer, to the women standing over him. The one lady is cutting her hair to mourn and to honor him."

She tilted her head at the image once again, drinking in the small details of their costume, the wrinkles in the man's hands, the flash of the knife as it sliced through strands of hair. "Is such a thing common amongst your...our...people?"

"Used to be, in the old tradition."

She traced the outline of the frame with a wary fingertip. She remembered a similar frame in Charles's study. "You make our grandfather sound very...traditional. Did Thunder Horse have a death song?"

The air in the room lost its brightness for a moment, and the odor of smoldering tar mingled with the scent of the Hoppe's. She watched Karen out of the corner of her eye. Karen's eyes locked on to Charles's for just a moment. Then she returned her focus to the firearm, wiping gun oil down the barrel more vigorously than before. She swore under her breath. Charlie backed away from the door to the room and padded back down the hall, out of sight. Several ragged breaths later, Karen finally answered.

"He never got the chance."

(break)(break)

A/N: For those of you not familiar with Roy Harper: Roy Harper is a member of the Outsiders (Nightwing and Starfire's current group). He used to be Speedy on the old Titans' team. Back then he was pretty much just an archer. Now he uses a whole array of weapons. I can only assume that since the Outsiders and Titans cross-over so often, Raven would at least be somewhat familiar with some of his weapons.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 9

A/N: This chapter leans heavily on the Titans' history, so if you see something that you are unsure about, please read the Author's Notes at the end of the chapter. If you are not very familiar with the 80s Titans, I suggest reading those notes before reading this chapter. I have tried to explain the backstory. If something is missing, let me know.

(break)(break)

Bart jumped at the crash of collapsing furniture, not believing what he was hearing. The couch in the living area just wasn't far enough away for this fight to be a quiet one. Every word of the argument was crystal clear in sound, if not in meaning. He turned up the television so he couldn't hear the rest of it.

_Wally? _he wondered to himself. _What is this about Raven and my cousin?_

_What did Beast Boy say?_ "That was a long time ago. She was desperate to get him on the team and didn't know any better."

_I know she brought the other team together to fight her dad. But what's this about Wally? Flash never mentioned her before._

He scratched his chin and thought for a moment more. _Maybe that's why she's so quiet when someone talks about the Justice League. Well, certain really fast members of the JLA don't believe in me, either. Go figure._

_But why was whatever happened bad enough to still be causing trouble? Trouble enough to make Frick and Frack there fight. What did she do? _

He turned off the television and took the alternate route to his room upstairs. Seated at his computer, he began his delve into the tower's internal network.

_Let's see. I know she recruited these guys for the old New York team. Maybe there's something about what went on with them in our files? How do I search for this? Team origins? Trigon? The Big Apple? The New York tower was built not long after they formed . . ._

He began typing: _Titans Tower New York construction_

_Let's see where that gets me . . ._

_Then maybe I'll call Wally ..._

(break)(break)

Gar was almost speechless. Almost.

"What?"

With a deep sigh, Cyborg glanced down at the shattered table and spread his hands in front of him. "Maybe not the way you think you love her, Gar, but I do love her, too. I don't want to see her hurt herself again and again like this."

Gar sputtered. "I won't hurt her! What do you think I'm doing, just looking to get under her cloak?"

"No. I know you. You'd never hurt her on purpose. And Raven? When she's in control, she wouldn't harm a soul. Sweetest person I ever met. But you and I both know we can't count on that control. She's not stable, yet."

"She's better now, Vic. She's learning so much and –and -- and why am I explaining this to you? We don't need your permission!"

"You're telling me because we're friends. And because I'm her guardian. I'm responsible for her."

"You're responsible for her."

"Yes. At least until she gets on her feet. As far as San Francisco is concerned, she's only sixteen, and someone has got to be legally responsible for her. Her life has stopped and started so many times, B.B. She's not ready for the world, and it's not ready for her. Someone's got to help her."

"And you're the only man for the job, is that it?"

"I cared enough to help her with this when nobody else even thought of it. I owe her, man. And she deserves the help. And she trusts me – whenever she _did_ ask for help in the past, she came to _me_." He sat back down in the chair, wincing as it creaked beneath his weight. "Did you know she was the first girl that didn't run away screaming when she met me? It didn't hit me until later that she was the first."

The chromed Titan rested his chin on his fist as he continued. "I-I know I didn't trust her at all in the beginning, but that was before I got to know her. And I finally realized I am who I am because of her. She chose me for her team, Gar. Me! I was never a superhero before like the rest of you guys. I was just a college jock that couldn't play any more because I was too strong. But she picked me anyway. I was standin' there thinking I was some kind of tin-plated Frankenstein's monster, but she saw somethin' else. Somebody worth somethin'. Joining the team gave me a whole new life. And I never thanked her for that. She was the one who got me talkin' to my dad again, while I still had a chance to before he died. And when the Technis had me – man, she held my soul inside her own to save me. She held my _soul_. It almost destroyed her, but she did it, anyway. She'd do _anything_ to help me, no matter how much it hurts her. Or to help you. Or even someone who hated her or didn't know her. And she needs our help now."

Beast Boy's jaws clenched. "She's _always_ needed our help."

"Yeah, Gar, I know. I know that. And maybe all of us old-school Titans feel guilty about not giving it before. I know I do. I know _you_ do. But, damn it, Gar, I'm _not_ going to confuse guilt with attraction. It's too easy to do. Way too easy. She's my family, like she's my kid sister. And you're my best friend. Understand – I don't want you two hurting each other. We've got a good family here, especially the three of us. We're the ones who live here. I don't want to lose that."

"We're still family. If anything, we're closer—"

"For how long? How long can it last up against everything she has to live with? She's not ready for a relationship. Not now. Her personality needs to stabilize first. What if history repeats itself if she dives in before she's ready? What if you guys break up and she leaves? Or you leave? Gar, you know what happens in the future if this team doesn't stay together."

Gar burned with the memory helping her recover from her fight with Superboy and how right it had felt.

"Oh, don't even go there! Who decides when she's ready? You? I don't think so. And -- and think about this -- what if lack of love caused that history in the first place? What if a relationship would actually help her? You ever think of that?"

Cyborg looked down at his hands. Chrome-hued fists opened, closed, then opened again. "It's not safe. Whether she's subconsciously making this happen or you're making it happen out of some sense of obligation, it's not real. And even if it is real, it's just not safe."

"_Safe_? And since when was love _safe_?"

Garfield bent down to pick up the seashell from the floor. Palming it with great care, he turned on his heel and stormed from the room. Cyborg was left alone with the mound of splintered wood and metal scattered across the kitchen.

(break)(break)

A/N: OK, there's a lot of Titans' history in this one.

Raven assembled the 80s version of the Titans to fight her father, Trigon. She hand-picked the people on the team, including both Cyborg and Beast Boy. I think I've already described how Wally got picked in a previous chapter (which Bart is now curious about).

The New York Tower was built by Silas Stone, Cyborg's father. It was one of Silas's experiments that killed Vic's mother and destroyed most of Cyborg's body. His father saved his life by grafting what was left of him with cybernetic parts. Vic was angry at his father for a long time for not letting him die. Vic thought he was a freak. Then Raven approached him about being on the team even though he was not a superhero before (like the rest of the members). The accident that created Cyborg also created a cancer-like disease in his father. Vic didn't know about it until Raven convinced him to speak to his father, who had built the tower for his son's team. He rebuilt his relationship with his father and got to spend a couple of months with him before his dad died.

The Technis incident is detailed in the series/trade paperback "JLA/Titans: The Technis Imperative". To make a very long story short, Cyborg had been taken over by an extraterrestrial race of cybernetic beings called the Technis. They brought him to our moon to try to convert it into a new Technis homeworld. Everyone who had ever been a Titan was called together to stop the Technis and save Victor. I think Vic's original body had been destroyed at this point, but I'm not sure. Anyway, to save his soul, Raven held his soul in her soul-self until they could prepare a new "body" for him. It was pretty painful for them both, but it did save him. You can find more details on can name two distinct instances where she went to Cyborg for help. One was in the "Runaways" story (80s series, #26). Raven found a young runaway, Lizzie Angelo, who was pregnant and turning tricks to support herself. Raven took her to Vic's apartment to get her something to eat. Vic then had the idea of taking her to a runaway shelter that Vic had run to himself when he was younger. The other instance was in the Baxter series #39 when she had just finished her talk with Starfire about her confusing relationship with Dick Grayson. She didn't want to be alone, and she went to go visit Vic. He was the one she thought of first.

When Cyborg reminds Gar what happens if the team splits up, he is referring to events in the Titans of Tomorrow storyline (TT (GJ version) #16 – #19, captured in the "Teen Titans Volume IV: The Future Is Now" trade). Basically, if the team breaks up, very very bad things happen to the entire country. That storyline hinted at a possible future for the team that they definitely want to avoid.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 10

He blended with the night in her room. A wraith. A hole in the darkness.

_The child sleeps,_ he whispered to himself. _Sweet, sweet child._

_My child._

He stood over her, watching the valleys of her face twitch, watching the rolling of her eyes beneath the tightly closed lids.

_What dark dream haunts you now?_

He could taste fear in her labored breathing. Its metal bite filled his mouth.

The shadow leaned closer to her, sniffing her exhalations, tracing the source of her dread.

She was moaning. "Sebastian...no...do not...do not do this..."

_So, she dreams of the moon-faced one. The drinker of blood. The one who would take her against her will._ He rested one gloved hand on her forehead. _Blessed child, you are too young to suffer from such things._

"Why...why this...why am I this," the girl groaned.

He willed the agony to him, consuming it as it flowed from her pores, as it evaporated from her like steam.

"Sleep," he whispered to her now-still form. Her moaning faded, and the only sound in the room was her now-quiet breathing.

_So helpless. I could take her with me now. But no, not yet. _

"No more fear tonight, my Rachel."

His lips, still burning from the taste of her terror, rested briefly on her forehead. Pulling the dark hood closer around his face, he melted into the night and left her to a dreamless slumber.

(break)(break)

Sebastian is Brother Blood's real name. Remember, Brother Blood is the one that captured Raven's spirit body and bound her to a new flesh body.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 11

Karen Thunder Horse stared out the window at their young guest.

"She's beautiful, Charlie," she said. "A little...odd, though."

He turned a page of the photo album he was holding. "What makes you say that, love?"

"She keeps giving the dog baths. I don't think Old Bill's ever been this clean! And she's really quiet for a teenager. She's always polite, but she won't talk much about herself. When we went shopping, she avoided talking to just about everybody. The only thing she seemed interested in buying was a bag of candy. I've never seen anyone so enthralled by Jolly Ranchers!"

"She's been ill, Karen. She doesn't have a lot of energy, yet. Well, except for washing the dog, it seems. You know how it gets with us empaths."

"Mmmmm. I sure do." She turned around to look at him. "Charlie, you're not giving her that drug, are you?"

"Karen!"

"You know I don't like that shit...you know what it's done before."

He stared at the wall. "The formula's improved, love. That won't happen again."

"_Promise_ me. Not on her."

He turned another page of the photo album. "All right, Karen. I promise. No Compound 20."

She joined him at the table, curling one leg underneath her as she sat down. "Pictures of your grandfather?"

"Yes," he replied as he turned another page. "I was hoping that telling her about our grandfather would open her up to talking about her own family. Like you said, she doesn't say much. She's using her mother's last name, and she won't talk about her father at all." He closed the book with great care and rested his hand on the cover. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. "Karen, I think – I think she was abused."

(break)(break)

_Dearest Garfield:_

_Where are you? Where am I? I do not know where to begin. I am not sure what to say. I have never written a letter like this before. I am not sure what has happened to me. I move about, I speak, but I still feel very weak. I feel very disoriented. The pain still comes and goes, but I am recovering. I am not confident enough in my strength to phase back to the tower to find you. Victor did not send my communicator with me. They hide the telephone from me, and oddly enough he has no connection to the internet, so I cannot even send you electronic mail. I have had no word from you, but I am not sure how you would have gotten it to me. _

_Charles tells me that everyone agreed to send me here. I cannot tell if he speaks the truth. He and his wife are very kind to me, and I am beginning to recover. I believe I am safe here. But I do not like being sent away like this, without anyone even asking me, without having a chance to say good-bye to you. I do not believe you would have agreed to this. I do not understand Victor's reasoning here, and I am unable to contact him as well. I do not want to be away from you. I miss you terribly. I want to reach out to you, but we both know what happens with my subconscious when I am weak! The results can be rather horrifying. So I do not seek you out that way, to keep you safe. _

_I must keep this brief. I do not have much time to myself. I have enclosed the address here so you can at least know where I am. I will slip this into the mail as soon as I can – I have not left you –_

_Be safe, beloved_

_R-_

(break)(break)

Thunder Horse took the pipe from his mouth. "I'm sorry I never sent you pictures of the glyphs in the weapons cave. Remember, the cave we were looking for when we first met?"

"I do remember," Raven replied with a shiver. Karen was behind her, braiding her hair into a single braid down her back. The brush through her hair and the motherly attention was a balm to her shaken spirit. It made her miss her own mother; such simple acts between them had been strictly forbidden. But she could close her eyes and imagine Arella being allowed to do this.

"Well, would you like a chance to see them in person? They are fascinating. And there are lots of other places I'd like to show you, now that you are strong enough to walk about. Who knows? Maybe it'll spark an interest for you. As in future career? It would be nice to have someone in the family in the business. Especially with the way you can travel – it would come in handy in getting to remote sites!" He beamed as he pointed at her with the stem of the pipe.

She cast him a doubtful look.

"I know you must be afraid of the place, Dawn Child. But going back there might be good for you, to see the good that came out of the bad there."

Karen slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Charlie, don't you ever quit with the psychiatry?"

"Everything is a mixed bag, my love. Everything has a bit of good and a bit of bad in it. For every bad cave we find, we need to find the good that comes out of it." He held out a folder. "Here, child. Here is a partial translation of the glyphs. The strange thing is, the glyphs themselves are native to areas like Chaco, but the manner of speech is quite different. Maybe that will pique your interest?"

She took the folder while trying to not lean to far away from Karen's ministering hands. Her eyes grew wider as she scanned the transcript.

_And he comes, the destroyer of worlds_

_Red devil ripping open the sky_

_To rule with his bloodline the peoples of the earth_

_But the deceiver himself is deceived_

_The bloodline and her twin, the heart of a star,_

_destroys the destroyer from within_

_Twin? Heart of a star? Could that mean Azar? _The folder shook in her hand. "And this is only a partial translation? There is more?"

"There's more. I could use help with the rest. I can teach you--"

"How soon can we leave?"

(break)(break)

The Jeep Cherokee rattled down the canyon road. Thunder Horse watched his passenger out of the corner of his eye. _She spends so much time in quiet. How long has she been in pain like this?_

He remembered Karen's words : _Her knowledge is so spotty, Charlie. She only knows bits and pieces of what a teenaged girl should know. And sometimes she acts like she's older than me! It's like her mind is full of holes. And I only know that from watching her. She'll talk to me, but she won't tell my anything important._

He turned over his newly-found relative's behaviors in his mind. He shielded himself from her, so she would not sense his prying thoughts. _She acts like someone who has been isolated most of her life. I'm sure there has been abuse here. Not physical, maybe, there's no real sign of that. And with her empathic ability to heal herself, there would be no evidence of it, anyway. But emotional? Definitely. Angela, what kind of man did you marry? What sort of monster did you allow to hurt this child? _He shifted in his seat. _If I could only get her to talk to me, really talk._

"So I was thinking," Charlie said, gesturing with one hand while driving with the other, "that the glyphs might be referring to Coyote, since it talks about a deceiver."

The words shook her out of her meditative reverie. "Excuse me? Coyote?"

"Coyote is just one name for this – this being. You know that I study the lore of many peoples, not just the Lakota. The Trickster being appears in many traditions. Many nations refer to him as Coyote. Others think of him as a spider. Or sometimes, even..." He smiled slyly at her. "a raven."

He continued before she could reply to that. "Trickster does have many guises, but I tend to call him Coyote. And he has many reasons for being. He creates both order and chaos wherever he goes. He gives with one hand and takes with the other. He is a shapeshifter, always changing his appearance. There are so many stories – often funny ones –"

"So he is a source of jokes? And he changes shape? He sounds...familiar."

Thunder Horse chuckled. "Well, the stories have humor in them, but the concept of Coyote himself is not funny. Although I could see what some of my relatives would think of your green friend if they ever met him." He turned the jeep onto another dirt road and headed north. "They would think Coyote had walked up out of nowhere...but Coyote himself is not funny. He can bring evil, but along with the evil he can bring good. And when he brings good, some evil follows. I must tell you Grandfather's stories sometime. He knew so many! He is the one who taught me much of what I know about Coyote. Then you would understand."

"The 'mixed bag' that you are so fond of?"

"Yes. A necessary evil, you might say. Life takes on a whole new meaning when you live in two worlds like I do. I have to weigh everything from two points of view. There's my doctor's heart, that forces me to see the facts and judge them scientifically. Then there's my Lakota Heart."

"Lakota Heart?"

"Yes, seeing with the wisdom our grandfather passed on to me. Seeing with compassion. And with a mind open to the spiritual--ah, here we are." He parked the Jeep at the edge of a familiar vista. "Remember this?"

(break)(break)

_I do not like this place._

She stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, waiting for that same wave of fear and despair that had found her the first time she had been here. It never came.

_Something is missing that was here before._ She took a deep breath and focused on the beam of light that she shone ahead of her. The chamber was largely empty, but she knew that not long ago it held a cache of deadly weapons in secret for the Black Rose Underground – a group with members still on the loose. And one of them was looking for her.

_This is not the safest place for me to be,_ she thought. _But I must see this. The meanings of the glyphs are too close to me. I need to know what they say. Is there some new knowledge here? Something else I need to know?_

She nearly tripped over the remains of a wooden crate. But even its empty shell gave off few vibrations of the suffering that she sensed before. That suffering had been almost _alive_.

Charles beckoned to her; his body was half in the shadow and half in the ray of light. "Here they are."

She directed the beam of the flashlight to his hand. The air was thick and chilly in the darkness of the cave. She shivered as she moved forward to the wall. She rested her hand on the damp stone.

"The translated part is here, and here," Charles said, not looking at her. "I wanted to work on the translation of this portion today. I believe there are some actual drawings in the next section. It would help me a great deal if you would work on uncovering those for me." He brought a square pad of paper out of his pack. "Here you go. A gift. You can sketch and write what we find on this. You can even take it home with you...when you go back." An _if_ hung in there between them. "It can start your career as an archaeologist, maybe."

She nodded in reply as she accepted the small book. Her eyes were locked on the glyphs. _I am afraid of what I will find_.

(break)(break)

Her dust-covered hand flew to her mouth.

_And I was right to be afraid_.

_The Red Devil_, the verse had said. And there he was, four eyes and horns, grinning at her from the cave wall. _I will never be used to that face. I hope I never am used to it._ He was dead now, but years of carrying the burden of his legacy had taken its toll on her heart. She kept brushing the dirt away from the other drawings, tears racing down her face and making muddy tracks on her cheeks the whole time.

_I do not want him to know. Not now. I will lose what family I have if I..._

Charlie's hand rested on her shoulder. "Dawn Child? What is it?"

A sob escaped her throat. _Don't say it... don't..._

She felt his eyes studying her. That shield that she always sensed around him slipped a little as she felt him opening his mind up to her. She quickly strengthened the barriers in her own, and she knew he sensed that defensive move as well.

"Little sister, I know that someone has hurt you, hurt you terribly, in the past. It still hurts you. Tell me. Tell me who did this terrible hurt to you."

Her hand slapped the colored stone in front of her. "He did."

(break)(break)

A/N: The partial translation here is, of course, referring to her father, Trigon. Enough to pique her interest, to be sure. Here is an example of her curiosity at its strongest.

The Angela that Thunder Horse is referring to is Raven's mother. Raven calls her Arella, which is the name she was given in Azarath. Angela Roth is her real name.

Some of the information on Coyote that I used for this chapter can be found at: http/ Paper: "Coyote in Navajo Religion and Cosmology" By Guy H. Cooper


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 12

Her bedroom felt so cold.

He leaned his back against the bolted door. _Trying to keep me out with just a lock. Vic, you should know better_.

It had taken him a week to work up the nerve to face the empty space. His eyes took in an inventory of the room, a room belonging to someone he had gotten to know better for that brief glimpse of time between that first kiss and Charlie taking her away.

_Nothing is missing_, he observed. _All of her clothes are here. Everything she owns is in here. Her incense. Her books. Her music. All of her uniforms. Even her cloak._

_That means she'll come back, doesn't it? She's got to have her cloak._

He padded over to the unmade bed and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He remembered how he'd cradled her here, how he'd tried to make her feel safe enough to cry, how mature he'd made himself be for her sake-- how her weakness had given him such strength. _Comforting you made me feel...like a man. And that can't be just some spell you put on me. It can't be._ He perched on the edge of the mattress and tried to imagine her here again, in his lap, with those surprisingly warm lips latching on to his.

_It has to be real, because I need that touch as much as she does._

He stared at the mirror that hung next to the bed. Mementoes clung to it, a shrine to her new chance at life. The blue silk scarf that she had earned in joining the Stair Luge Samurai. The snapshot of her and Cassie, with Raven in the dearly departed red dress. A few dried carnation petals from the fiasco they had called a first date. _I thought Vic had lost it. I wonder. Did she go back to that rooftop for it? _

He lingered there for many minutes, hands in his pockets. His fingers found the seashell hidden there, and he turned it over and over in his hand.

_Too few things there_, he thought. He removed Conner's secret picture of the two of them from his pocket and tucked it into the edge of the mirror frame. _Oh, sweetie. My escape clause. My little samurai. I want to get silly with you. I want to go into one of those crazy mall photo booths and make faces at the camera with you. Or I can make faces and you can just look dignified. I don't care. _He sat down once more. _Every comedy team needs a straight man, anyway. Just as long as you're there._

Green fingers ran across the tangled sheets. They searched for any lingering warmth she might have left behind, but they only found the chilled empty air of the room.

_If this were a spell, Vic, then why do I feel even more attached to her now that she's not here?_

He clutched the tiny shell in his hand. _Something she gave me. One thing out of many._

It fairly glowed in the dim light of the room.

_I've done all I can do from here. No phone listings. No address on the internet. Nothing._

Nights were the toughest. Nights without her falling asleep against his shoulder during the credits of _The Princess Bride _or _L.A. Story_. Nights without him gently carrying her sleeping form to her bed. Tucking her in. Giving her one last soft peck on the cheek before slipping back to his own room, fighting the desire to just stay with her and defend her from her nightmares. _That can't be just guilt, Vic. _After only a few weeks, the sunset-and-a-movie ritual had rooted itself into his daily life. He couldn't remember how evenings were before that.

_Honey, you're so weird. But it's a weirdness that I love. The world is so new to you. And I want to show it to you. I love the smile that you get when you discover something new. Like a little kid. Like the kid you never got to be. You were a child, but you were never just a kid. I'll be a kid with you, for a while, if you'll let me._

His cheek sought out the pillow as he buried his face into the bed. It still harbored traces of her scent. The bedclothes, soft and cool, embraced him as he cocooned himself in them.

_Some day, some day I'll curl up with you like his,_ his brain murmured, hoping the thoughts would find their way to her. _Some day I'll lay you down here and show you how much you are loved. Let you feel ...how beautiful... you are...to me..._

His eyes lowered. His breathing slowed down.

_How much...some...day...you ...won't be... afraid..._

(break)(break)

"Do you love me?"

The familiar voice behind Beast Boy was quiet but steady. He turned to face the tiny column of midnight blue. Her face was concealed by her hood. The top of a thigh flashed warmly at him from above a boot. He crossed the floor to her.

"Yes, I do."

Two gloved hands touched the rim of the hood and pushed it back from her...red face... four eyes...

"Do you love _me_?" she asked again, her voice sweet between those blackened lips.

He froze. _I should change, I should shift... change... _but no creature came to his mind. _Not again._

The blue and red fell away and became a peachy flesh color. And there was his old face looking back at him, as if in a funhouse mirror. His own blond hair, his own blue eyes, the way he _would_ have been if it had not been for the sakutia, if it had not for the cure, that had made him what he was.

"It's just a dream. Dumbass." It had his voice, too. "You're just seeing what's going on in your mind. You saw her not long ago. You just don't remember it. The Dark Raven. She gave you this whole speech. When you got shanghaied two weeks ago. Black Rose Dude."

"Why don't I remember any of that?"

"You're blocking it. Because you don't want to remember her _other_ half. The reason why you haven't made any real efforts to track her down. Because maybe you don't want to have to face the fact that if you love her, you love _all_ of her, dark-side-of-the-force, four-eyes, interdimensional portal, red warts and all. Not just the pretty doe-eyed girl that lives down the hall. Do you think you can handle it when she goes all Sith Lord on you?"

"I – I—"

"_Think_ about it Logan. Not only are you falling for Darth Rachel, you're making yourself a marked man. Painting a big target on your own ass."

"What?"

"Hello! She's, like, the most abducted superheroine on the planet. _Everybody_ wants to get their hands on her. Hell, if Sauron were real, he'd be hanging on the doorbell right now, thinking 'Screw the ring, I'll take her!' She's a weapon."

"She's a person!"

"Are you sure? Are you sure you want to put yourself between her and whatever psycho wants to get at her?"

"Besides Brother Blood?"

"You want a list?"

"I'm already doing that. Protecting her. The whole team is doing that. We've always done that, since she brought the team together."

"Yeah, but when she first brought the team together, she didn't tell you you'd be fighting Trigon, did she?"

"No, she didn't. But nobody made me stay after I knew. I could'a quit at any time."

"You stayed."

"I stayed. I wanted to stay. I chose to stay. I'm still choosing to stay."

"And you know what you could be letting yourself in for if you go on with this? More than just a piece of cape?"

Gar made a face at his doppelganger.

"Oh, c'mon, Logan. You know you want her. And she knows you want her."

"She hasn't said yes to that."

"She hasn't said no, either. That's gotta count for something."

"Quit rationalizing!"

"Just admit it. You'll feel better if you just admit it. You're always trying to come off as a player, so don't lie to me and tell you don't think about it."

"It kinda goes without saying, doesn't it? Sure I do. But that's not the point. She hasn't said anything, but I think she's afraid of it. And I don't wanna scare her."

"Ya think? Have you talked to her about it?"

"Well...no."

"Better bring it up, soldier. If you can't talk about it, don't you dare try to do it. She's not just anybody, you know. She's not just the girl down the hall. She'll _never_ be just the girl down the hall. Even if she lost her powers for good and never went on a mission again, she'd never be that."

"I know. But that's why –"

"That's why you love her, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Even if everybody just _knows_ she's hell just waiting to happen?"

"Even if. She's _good_. I know she's good. I'm willing to take that chance."

"You're willing to take on the burden this will be? Loving her may be easy; living with what she is may not."

"To be honest, I've 'lived' with that for years now."

"Not like this, goofer. Not like this."

"I'm willing to take that chance."

"Why? Why bother?"

"Because—" he faltered, remembering his own internal struggles with his own powers over the years, "because I have a beast in me that I have had to fight sometimes, too. I think I can begin to understand what she faces. And how she can be good even though – even because – she has to fight what's inside her so much. She'll have to take that chance with me, too."

The blond Gar offered his hand. "Then, congratulations, Logan. It's for real."

Gar just blinked at his blond reflection.

"No need to let anyone doubt it," he continued. "And since it's for real, you can handle the rest of it."

Gar still didn't move.

"Yes, the _rest_ of it. You're ready to handle the equally mind-blowing fact that Darth Rachel does _not_ exist. Not the way you think she does, anyway."

"Dude. Stop confusing me while I'm talking to myself."

"Okay, okay, hold on for a replay."

The dream-Gar reformed himself into the red shadow of Raven.

"I am not who you think I am, mortal. I am the last child of Trigon. Not the one you call Raven. I have no name. She took it from me. _Arjh-no-ree_. She took it from me."

The blond Gar reappeared. "So, what do you make of that? Need it again? In slo-mo?"

Beast Boy scratched his face. "Still don't remember any of that. So she says she's another side of Raven. I still don't see—"

"No, you don't see. Because that's not what she said. Did it ever occur to you that something else might be going on with our girl besides a raging case of split personality? That maybe old four-eyes might be another being entirely?"

"No, no, Raven's always said that—"

"She's been wrong before. This isn't _Space Trek: 2022_, dumbass. This is real life. Things are never as black and white as they are in the movies. You of all people should know that. Your wheels have been turning on this one since you got away from that guy. Something else is going on, and it's something she doesn't know about. But she'll need to know about it, if she's ever going to be comfortable enough with herself to be happy."

"But if she doesn't know—"

"Find out what, or who, that _Arjh-no-ree_ thing is. Start there. That's your first big clue. But there's onemorething you need to do, Logan. You've got to find her, first. She didn't leave voluntarily. She didn't take her music _or_ her cloak. Even if you aren't sure if she'd leave you or not, you know she wouldn't leave them behind. And one other thing. Remember one more thing the red lady said—"

The demon loomed before him once more. "But I am really here. I am not just a vision. I came through _him_, through your attacker. He is of my bloodline. Her shell is no longer in that line...He will twist her mind with the same drug that crippled his, until fear is all she can see—"

"Bloodline?" Beast Boy shivered. He was starting to see the light.

Blond Gar took the demon's place. "Yup. Besides Trigon, how many male relatives of hers do you know? That would also know about Compound 27? You know what that means, don't you, Logan, old buddy, old pal?"

"Oh...no..."

"You're thinking what I'm thinking, babaloo. Now, Logan, grow a pair and go rescue your lady. Time to bring her home."

Garfield's eyes jerked open.

_Oh, God._

_Black Rose._

_Charlie. It's Charlie. _

_Oh, God._

(break)(break)

"You need some air," Charlie said. Gentle hands led her to the ledge outside the cave.

Her legs collapsed beneath her as her face encountered the harsh sunlight. Kneeling in the dust, she lost awareness of where she was. Her eyes were still full of that hideous visage painted on the rocky wall in the cave. Her fingers clutched at the roots of her hair as she shook her head at the ground.

An arm encircled her shoulders. She felt so small in its grasp.

"Dawn Child, oh, Dawn Child," he said gently. "I can help you. This is what I do. I know you've been hurt, terribly hurt. You need to tell someone, talk it out. If you will only trust me, I will listen."

She didn't resist the comforting touch, but she remained silent. _How can I tell you, Charles? How can I tell the story without you thinking I am insane?_

"Please, no," she finally replied. The cracks in her normally calm demeanor showed through her words. "No, not...not now."

"All right, all right. Perhaps when you feel safe, perhaps then you will trust me. You don't have to tell me anything just now."

He pulled at her hands. "Come, little sister. We are done for the day. We'll set up our camp next to the Jeep. We can finish this tomorrow."

(break)(break)

A/N:

I'm assuming most people know about Sith Lords from Star Wars. (Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Wars characters or concepts.)

If you are not a "Lord of the Rings" fan: Sauron was the dark lord of Mordor who was trying to rule the world. He was trying to retrieve a magic ring that would allow him to complete his quest for power (big trilogy in a tiny nutshell). (Disclaimer: I don't own any LOTR concepts, either.)


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 13

Bart rested his hand on his chin as he watched Beast Boy furiously stuffing a change of clothes into a worn backpack. He gazed around the bedroom as he leafed through an insect field guide at super-speed. The room was stacked high with such books, most with dog-eared pages and broken spines. _Well, he certainly does his homework,_ Bart mused as he sat the book back down on the unmade bed. His brain fairly hummed with the new images of beetles, flies, and wasps that he had just memorized. _Never know when B.B. might need a refresher course in the field._

Bart's finger lightly traced the corner of the book. "Superboy told me about the paparazzi that chased you on your first date. Any sign of the pics?"

Gar sniffed a shirt before cringing and discarding it. "Not yet. Not even a peep on _Superheroes Tonight_. Which is a good thing. She'd be mortified if..." His thought drifted off as he buried his head into one of his closets.

"Why do you have two closets?" Bart asked. "Nobody else has them."

His green friend pointed into the closet in front of him. "This one is for uniforms and adjustables. The other is for non-adjustables. Don't want to get them mixed up."

"Adjustables?"

"Yeah. I've got two sets of clothes. Dayton Industries weaves the fabric that I use in my uniforms. They've made stuff for me since my Doom Patrol days. They made some for my mom, too. You know, Elasti-Girl, so her clothes would grow taller with her. Those guys also make some street clothes out of it for me, 'cause, you never know when I might need to transform into something when I'm not in official uniform."

"Why the other clothes, then? Why not have all your clothes made out of it?"

Gar picked up the map from his bed and began folding it. The back panel bore the label "Twilight Canyon" in bold blue letters. A route was marked in green highlighter across the page. His words flowed quickly as he re-checked the contents of his bag. "They only make certain 'extras' for me. They're big Weird Al fans, so they makes lots of Hawaiian shirts, jeans, shoes, stuff like that. If I want a suit coat or anything special, I have to go buy it myself. But I do have to remember when I'm wearing what." He nudged the loose pile of magazines next to his bed with his toe. "I'm not much of a neatnik, but I am _very_ picky about sorting my clothes. Putting the non-adjustable clothes in the adjustables closet could prove to be very embarrassing later. But between you, me, and the tower, _all _of my tightey-whiteys and boxers are made of the stuff. Can't have the ladies swooning from my greatness if I get caught with my pants down. Which works except -- "

"Except when you go commando?"

"Uh, yeah. Like on laundry day." He slid on one purple boot under the pair of jeans. "Uniform slips under must clothes pretty well anyway. And I _always_ take adjustables when I travel."

"That explains a lot. I always wondered why sometimes your clothes, um, adjusted, and sometimes you just came out of them. And sometimes we see your, uh, greatness anyway. Did you tell Raven about all this?"

"Hey, we're not at the stage where we're discussing our underwear yet, ok? Or my greatness. Let's just leave it at that."

"But you're always chasing around like a ladies' man, thought you were a little faster than that."

"Hey, this is _Raven_ we're talking about, dude. Have a little respect."

Bart snorted at him. "So, why are you going to go find her? If she was in trouble, wouldn't she just tele—I mean, move through the dimensions home?"

Gar fastened the straps on the pack. "Every time we thought that in the past, we were dead wrong. And being wrong about that got us _all_ in trouble. No. I've got to assume that if she hasn't come back yet, it's because she can't. For whatever reason, she can't."

"And that's what worries you."

"Yeah. Look, it takes a lot of energy to do what she does. Jumping a few miles for her is like me running a fifty-yard dash. The farther she goes or the more people she carries, the harder it is on her. If she's not in any shape to run, she's probably too hard up to phase. Make sense?"

"Sure. You just wanna make sure she's ok. Never thought about that before. I've asked a lot of questions about her powers, but not that. Why'd she tell you?"

"She talks to me now. She didn't really talk to anybody before, except maybe –"

"Wally?" Bart's ears perked up as he said his own cousin's name.

"Yeah. Sometimes."

"Hmph," Bart replied, some hidden meaning lurking behind his eyes. "She told you that, and you haven't told her about your magic underwear?"

"We're getting to that. Don't rush us."

"So how are you getting out there?" Bart pointed to the map. "Vic's got the jet down for maintenance."

"I know. Curious timing on that, ya think?"

"Why do you need to search for her? Can't you just use some mapping software or something with his address?"

"Cyborg won't give it to me. And I've searched for his address on the net, too. Unlisted. This guy is thorough. I'll just have to start at the canyon and work my way out from there."

"Won't give it to you? Does he still think you're suffering from Love Potion Number Nine or something?"

"Yup." He yanked on the straps of the backpack harder than he really needed to. "Thinks I'll make up anything just to get to her. He doesn't think she's in trouble. But I'm going anyway."

"Do you wanna lift? I can carry you if you turn into something small. You'd be out there in no time. I'd like to help."

"Anything for a fellow Stair Luge Samurai, huh?" Gar picked up the tiny seashell from his dresser and tucked it into the side pocket of his duffle.

Bart grinned. "Sure. I _am_ the Shogun, after all. I just need to know what direction you want to go in. I'd need to get back right away, though. Got some – uh – research that I need to do."

(break)(break)

A/N: I just wanted to explain why sometimes his clothes go with and sometimes they don't.

Also, the references to the Stair Luge Samurai come from my one-shot story, "Stair Luge Samurai".

And I am really starting to like using Bart as a character.


	14. Chapter 14

Coyote – Chapter 14

Raven and Thunder Horse were eating an early dinner when the call came.

"The Red Clouds are Navajo, like most of the people in this area," he explained as they drove to another part of the canyon. "A lot of them know me around here, since I do so much study here. They seem to trust me in times like these."

"What has happened?"

"Friend's grandson. James Red Cloud. He lives with his grandparents. I think his grandfather just died. One word of advice here – don't talk about the grandfather, Raven. In this culture, it's not polite to talk about the dead, okay? Jimmy might, he's one of the younger folks. But the elders -- " He north onto another road. "Apparently he's climbed to a cave that a lot of us older folk have trouble getting to and won't come down. They need for someone to talk him down." He studied her out of the corner of his eye. "I must let you know, cousin, that many of my friends here are distrustful of what they might see as...magic. Some of your – talents – might be viewed as witchcraft by some of the older folk. You might want to just keep who you are between us for now. I'll introduce you as Rachel, okay?"

She nodded. _Enough people are distrustful of me as it is._ The less she had to explain to other people, the better.

The late afternoon sun was melting into a soft evening light as they pulled up to a small knot of elders gathered by the side of the road. They were pointing to a cliff in the distance. A taste of worry and uncertainty hung in the air.

While her cousin discussed the situation with the Navajo elder, Raven studied the cliff that the young man had ascended. It was not quite the sheer vertical slope that they had been led to believe, but it was very close. It reminded her of the rocky outcroppings on the outskirts of her home in Azarath. A wry, painful smile drew across her face as she remembered her own youth, and her own desires to escape from her teachers and elders. _This reminds me of my own promontory, my own spot of solace and solitude_, she thought.

She closed her eyes and raised a hand towards the child, trying to sort out the turmoil flowing from that direction. _So familiar, older ones who think they know better trying to make a young one something they are not_.

She half-heard Charles's conversation with the grandmother.

"James was raised in the traditional ways," she cried. "He has always been with us. Now, the rest of the family wishes to send him away from me, to a school. He's only twelve. They tell me he won't be allowed to speak Navajo there, that he must forget his past."

_Why must one knowledge be bought at the cost of another?_ She examined the cliff again. _It has been many years, _she thought, _but I believe I can make it up there. _

"Charles," she whispered. "Give me the waterskins. Perhaps I can talk to him."

He turned to her, his eyes wide. He replied in a secretive tone, "You do not want to use your...ability just now. Our people are mistrustful of such powers. They will think it is–"

"Witchcraft. I know. I am not going to do that. Or anything that might frighten him." She lifted the pack over her shoulders. "I am going to follow in his footsteps."

"Climb? But how? You cannot –"

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I have many more abilities than what you have seen."

"But there is no equipment – your shoes –"

"_He_ did not need any equipment. And as for shoes..." Her sentence drifted off as she strode towards the base of the cliff. _And as for shoes, I used to do this in high heels and a dress._

She felt consternation boiling behind her as she knelt at the root of the wall. She scooped up the desert dust between her hands, rubbing it into her palms. It was an ancient ritual that her mind remembered but that her new body had never experienced before. _I wonder how much muscle memory carries over in a soul._ She shook off the excess dust. _I cannot worry about that now._ Her path was set out before her. _All I have to do now is focus on moving_. _Nothing else._ She looked at the layer of dust on her hands. _So much thinner than what I remember_. She pulled the small drawstring purse Karen had given her out of her jacket. Coins bounced off the rocky earth as she scooped more of the dust into the purse and tied it to her belt.

She closed her eyes as she searched for the right rhythm of breath that would carry her up the steep climb. She remembered the meditative quality that the movement had, even when she had wound her way up that ancient rocky column in a fit of utter despair time and again. _They cornered me and hounded me, moment after moment, every waking thought of Trigon, Trigon, Trigon, always him. No room for my own thoughts, my own ideas. Damn them. _A taste of it came back to her now, but she wasn't sure if that bitter flavor was hers or coming from the child high above her.

She pushed the memories away to focus on the task at hand; she would be useless if this did not work. Hand over hand, foot over foot, each limb searching for the next hold. She felt clumsy at first, like the first time she had tried to reach that high point, the one place she felt that the elders could not follow her to. They could fold dimensions too, but there was only room for one on that perch –

Her hand slipped as it tried to gain purchase on a sharp edge. _Focus!_ She swore at herself for allowing her attention to drift. Sweat was starting to wash off the protective dust on her hands, making her grasp uncertain. She slipped the fingers of that hand into the purse to refresh the dust and remove the dangerous moisture from her palm.

Grateful for Cyborg's insistence on building up her muscle tone, she continued the ascent. The safest path was a near-spiral up the wall, first leaning one way, then another. She was moving faster now; there were fewer loose stones this high up. Her knees were starting to complain, but she could shut out the pain; it was an ordinary hurt and not the ghost of wounds past. At least for now.

Hand over hand over hand. It felt good to get her hands around stone once more. There was something healing about this direct connection to the energies flowing through the earth. These rocks were not dead and lifeless. They were just very...slow. Sweat beaded on her forehead as well as on her hands. She renewed the dust every few yards. She could feel eyes watching her every twitch, both from below and from above. _His name is James_, she reminded herself as she turned her face up to view her final target again. One more good push would get her there. Two black pupils stared at her from the top of the outcropping. _And he knows I am coming. And I have no idea how to proceed._

Not expecting a hand up over the final lip of rock, she extended her feet as long as they would go on their respective resting places and pushed off. A small enough use of flight would resemble a jump from a distance. The outcropping would obscure his view enough that he might be slightly impressed without being frightened. She landed in a crouch next to him.

He stepped back a little but did not scream.

"Hello," she began. _Might as well begin at the beginning_. "You must be James?"

"Jimmy Red Cloud," he replied. "You're here to make me come down, aren't you?"

She blinked, not sure what to say next. Twenty different wise sayings rolled through her mind all at once, but none seemed to fit here. The impression from him now was of _he has been lectured enough_. _I know how he feels. This goes beyond empathy. I have walked that road many times._

She rose slowly, allowing her legs to recover from the climb. They shook a little from the effort. _I am tired,_ she thought, _but it is a good kind of tired. I earned it._ Surveying the outcropping, she saw an empty waterskin on the ground. She loosened hers from her shoulders. "Are you all right? Are you thirsty?"

"No," he shrugged with the nonchalance towards adults that is part of the package of being twelve years old.

"Well, I certainly am," she quipped back, hoping to get a longer response. _And I am._ She squeezed a little of the tepid liquid into her mouth and resealed it. She swirled it around her dry gums before swallowing. _I feel...stronger._ "I am just a fellow climber. I thought I would come up here and see what I could see."

He plopped down with his elbows on his knees. He stared out into the distance and ignored her. She sat down a few feet away and stared in the same direction. She wrapped her arms around her knees. Silence floated between them like a feather on a breeze. _Fortunately, silence is an old friend._ It gave her a chance to catch her breath.

The vista was indeed beautiful. The floor of the canyon stretched out before them for miles. Mostly flat except for dots of scrub and loose stone, it rolled until it ended at the sheer wall of the main lines of canyons to the west.

Closer to them was a sandstone spire that blossomed into layers of salmon and tan rock at the top. The colors were starting to deepen; night was chasing the sun from the sky. Even closer were the small cluster of people hovering around Thunder Horse's jeep and the ancient truck of this child's grandmother. _I must have climbed higher than I thought. They are rather small_.

This situation reminded her of a movie that Garfield had picked as part of the One Hundred Movies: _Roxanne._ She had watched it last week, a short while after the incident with the nitrogen narcosis had loosened her up a little. Once she figured out that it was a modern retelling of _Cyrano de Bergerac_, which she had had to read for school the previous semester, she actually found it...amusing. One scene had the Cyrano-like character talking to a young man that had scaled a roof. He had taken a different tack than most in talking to the boy. _A different direction is needed here as well_.

"You didn't answer my question," he said, breaking the silence. "Are you here to make me come down?"

"No," she said softly, surprised to find that she meant it. _If we make him come down, this will only happen again._ _And again. He must decide to come down on his own._

She reached into her pack and retrieved the sketchpad and pencil that her cousin had given her.

He pointed to the group huddled in the gathering darkness below. "I watched you come in with them."

"I just wanted to see what was so exciting up here. You can come down when you want to. It is a...it is free country, is it not?"

He snorted. "You know, you're not very good at this."

She sighed. "No, I am afraid I am not. I have never been what might be termed 'social'. I am rather new to being an adult."

"You don't look much older than me," he said, eyes studying the girl next to him.

"I am older than I look," she replied without looking at him. She opened the sketchpad slowly and nodded at the growing crowd below. More cars were pulling in to watch them. She turned the pages past the notes she had made earlier that day. "Although convincing my cousin of that is going to be a bit of a feat, I think."

His look of surprise intensified. "You are Thunder Horse's _cousin? _But you're –"

"White. Anglo. Yes, I know. Actually, he is cousins with my mother. Her mother was Lakota, but her father was Anglo. So I am only part Lakota." _Let him ask the questions, _she warned herself. _That is the way to get him to talk. And that is what he needs. What you needed back then._

He did not reply. He simply leaned back on his elbows and continued to watch the sunset.

The sun was lining up with the rock column. Streaks of graphite appeared across the paper as she began to sketch its outline. "I can see why you like this spot," she said. "I like to watch sunsets, myself. What do you call that over there?" She pointed at the column with her pencil. "I need to name the picture."

"Coyote Rock. It sounds like a nice name, but it isn't. Ask Charlie about it." He leaned forward to look at the sketch. "You can't draw, either."

Her cheeks burned a little. _No, I am not an artist like Joseph. _Her pencil paused in mid-air. _Dear Joseph. No, I cannot think about you. Not now._ "I cannot do many things."

"You can climb rocks," he said with an encouraging air. He gestured at the cars with his chin. "I think they're still waiting on the rescue squad. Where'd you learn how to climb like that?"

_Now I am getting somewhere._ "I grew up in a place much like this."

"Utah?"

_Why in Azar's name does everyone think I am from Utah? _"No, but much like it. My teachers were very demanding –"

"Always on your back?"

"Something like that." _Why am I discussing this so freely?_ "I needed a place to be alone. To think."

"And watch sunsets, I guess," he finished for her. "Me, too. I just wanted to come here and think. They think I'm going to do something stupid."

"Stupid?"

"Like jumping. You know."

"Yes, that I know."

"Did you ever think about jumping?"

She looked away and set down the sketchpad. _I have come too far to lie now._ Her voice was very small. "Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because jumping was worse than not, if you can believe it."

"Worse for you?"

"Worse for everybody."

"Are you glad you didn't?"

She hugged her knees again. _Am I glad I didn't? After everything I have endured? What is it about this child that makes me think about myself?_ She took in the view of the rim of Twilight Canyon on the horizon and remembered Garfield's joke about making an ass of himself for her anytime. A chuckle escaped her chest. "Yes, yes, I am."

He smiled at her. "You just told the truth, too."

An eyebrow arched. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you had to think about it. Most people would have just said 'yeah' because they thought I was going to jump or something and wanted to stop me. They wouldn't have known if it was true for them or not. Or cared."

She sensed that about him. "I think you would know if I were lying."

"Yeah, I can do that." He poked her elbow with his own. "Most people don't know I can do that."

"You are very thoughtful, then."

"Yeah," he replied softly. "I actually come out here all the time. That's why I climb so well. If no one else will listen to me, I can listen to me. And the rocks and the wind will listen to me. And they don't worry about being the one who's right or who's the boss of me. They just listen."

_The priests always wanted to be right. My feelings were less than nothing to them. They weren't supposed to exist._

She nodded without a word.

"I don't want to jump," he said at last. "I just wanted to think. They want to send me away to school now that Grandfather has left." He smacked his lips. "Say, can I have some of that water now?"

She handed the skin to him; only her ears and eyes were open.

"I like you. You don't talk much. Especially for a girl. But I'm glad you don't talk much. Means you think more. People either think or talk. They can't do both at the same time."

_I like him, too. He is wise beyond his years._

"Grandmother is afraid I'll forget I'm one of the tribe. Afraid I'll forget her."

"Is it a boarding school?"

"Yeah, three hours away from here. Ever been away from home like that? Away from your mother?"

"I was separated from her often, yes."

"Did she hate it?"

"Yes, she did. But later she took over my schooling entirely."

"You were home-schooled after that?"

"Yes." _And that is true, in a manner of speaking._

"Mine's going to be the opposite. Grandfather taught me for many years, and now they want to send me away."

"What did he teach you?"

"Lots, actually. I can read like someone in high school. I can fish and whittle. I can use a bow and arrow like nobody else around here. But people tell me that those skills won't help me in the _real world._"

"What do they call the _real world?_" she asked. _I would like to know what that is myself. I have always lived on its margins._

"Out there. White man's world. The Anglo world."

"What did Grandfather say about that?"

"That there are many worlds, and that you have to know how to live in all of them."

"Wise words. Sounds like he taught you a little of both."

He fell silent. She could feel his mind working, even if she could not read his thoughts. It was getting darker. She could only see the outline of his face now. She could also taste the stew of emotions below them. Less fear now, more agitation. She knew Charlie was concerned about what was taking so long. _Like the priests, they can wait._

She leaned forward and rested her chin on her knees. The cool breeze ruffled some of the loose hairs in her braid.

"It's too dark for you to climb down, now," he observed. "Sorry I kept you, talking."

She smiled. "That is all right. I have slept out of doors before."

"Really? Do you camp a lot?"

"No, but when I first left home, I had few places to stay indoors."

"You ran away?"

"Yes. I was quite the rebel in my...in my hometown."

He nodded. "I'll bet you were. Thinking person and all. Where did you sleep?"

"There are some nice bridges around Manhattan that are not too bad in the summer. If it is not raining." She gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Do not tell Thunder Horse, though. He does not know. He only discovered that I was his cousin recently." She paused. "As a matter of fact, none of my friends know about it, either."_ I have never told anyone this much about that time, the time between Azarath and the Titans. Not even my boyfriend. _She sighed. _Boyfriend. Every thought leads back to him, doesn't it? _Even the word _boyfriend_ felt strange in her mind, like a word in an alien language. Like a new jacket that didn't quite fit.

"Does your boyfriend know?" he asked in a sing-song teasing voice. "You do have a boyfriend, right?"

_Sharp._ "Yes, I do."

"I bet he misses you."

After a long moment: "I miss him, too."

"Then why are you out here instead of with him? Grownups?"

"Grownups."

He put a kindly hand on her shoulder. "What's your name?"

"Rachel."

"It'll be okay, Rachel. I'll bet he really likes you. And if you really like him, grownups can't get in the way for long."

"Do you think so?"

"I know so." He pulled his hand back to rest it on his knee. "Just like I know that they can't make me forget Grandfather, even if they try. Not if I really want to remember him. But I don't really think they'll try. Some things have changed since Grandmother was young, when schools were really like that. I'll just have to see. I just had to come here and think about it. I didn't want to come down until I did."

_Problem solved. All on its own. He requires no heroes other than himself._

He pointed to the horizon about the ridge. "And to see the stars here. The sky is so clear near the canyon. Do you see that star?"

She followed his finger with her eyes. A bright star winked above the rim. It was a pure, bright spike of light floating in the darkening sky. It was one she had never noticed before. She wondered what Garfield would have said about it. _Ribbet-ribbet, probably._

"Yes, it is beautiful."

"It's new. I've been coming here for a couple of years, and I know what stars are supposed to be up right now. That one has gotten brighter over the past couple of months. I talk to it sometimes, too, just like the wind and the rocks. I've decided that when they send me to school, I'm want to find out what the name of that star is, if they've named it yet."

"What if the star isn't named yet?"

"Maybe I can name it. Whoever sees it first gets to name it. But I bet someone with a telescope saw it before I did."

"What would you name it if you did?"

He looked at her. "Mmmmmm, I'm thinking 'Rachel'. Because you listened to me, too." He stood up and brushed the dust off of his pants. "Are you hungry? 'Cause I'm hungry." He picked up the empty waterskin and reached behind one of the rocks on the lip of the outcropping. He produced a large flashlight. "I think you've earned the easy way down."

"The easy way?"

"Yeah. If you think I'm climbing down in the dark, you're crazy."

(break)(break)

A surprisingly short hike through the cave at the back of the promontory and down a winding path later, they were back on the canyon floor just as the rescue team arrived. The grandmother ran to hug them both, singing to them in Navajo.

Charlie tapped her on the shoulder. "I am glad to see you, finally. I was getting worried you'd be out here all night."

She glanced over at James. He drew his finger and thumb across his lips in a zipping motion. She winked back as he pointed to the new star in the sky and mouthed the word "Rachel".

She drank in the light of the star through her eyes for a moment. She realized now why she had talked so freely. _It's not that I trusted the child_, she realized, _but after climbing up there on my own two hands, I trusted myself._

She turned back to Charlie. She breathed deeply as she drew herself up to her full height. "Let us return to our camp. We have much to discuss, cousin."

(break)(break)

A/N:

I think Raven's always had a soft spot for kids and runaways.

I didn't just make up the bit about rock climbing in heels and a dress. Go read _Legends of the DC Universe #18_ for proof of this ability! I was floored when I saw it.

I did make up the bit about sleeping under bridges. That's just a guess on my part. Hey, she had to stay somewhere.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 15

Cyborg stared into the kitchen. The empty space left by the mangled table glared back at him from the darkened room.

Ghosts sat in that kitchen, ghosts of the three amigos, sitting around a collection of breakfast dishes. Nothing special, really, just three towermates trying to start their day. Together.

_She'd hand us some blueberry muffins_, he thought. _The only thing she can really make, and that's from a mix, bless her little witchy heart. I'd make fun of her herbal tea. Gar would be ribbing her about her rabbit food. Trying to get her to smile. She'd do her best to just look dignified. I'd call him pea-soup-for-brains, and he'd call me 10W-40-head, and we'd laugh. I swear, sometimes she'd smile at that, just a little bit. That's us. A little family inside a larger one. _

_And I've tried to break it up._

Her quiet presence was so reassuring to him. Somehow, if someone in her shoes could be content, then maybe life in his own metallic boots wasn't so horrible after all. And Salad-head was there to keep him sane. Keep him laughing. Keep him from being a dead-serious leader all the time. Keep him human.

_Maybe she really was smiling at him. Maybe he really did care about making her smile, more than I thought he did._

And now they both were gone. The weekday tower was too quiet; its daily tempo was broken. Raven rarely made any actual noise, but there was always a background hum when she was there. A soft, warm, hum when things were going well. A sadder, cooler one when they weren't. But even that sad hum was silent now. Even more silent without Gar's incessant corny jokes.

_I just wanted to take care of you, Raven. That's all. Keep you from getting hurt again. I remember what that Forrester creep did to you. And I remember what Terra did to him, too. _

He examined the crumpled letter that she had managed to sneak past her guardian once more. The words engraved themselves into his heart: _I do not want to be away from you. I miss you terribly. I want to reach out to you..._

He shook his head at the empty room. _It never occurred to me that it might be real._

_Sister, I'm sorry._


	16. Chapter 16

Coyote – Chapter 16

"That Jimmy Red Cloud is something else," Charlie muttered, mostly to himself.

Raven wrapped her fingers around the tin cup and breathed in the warmth curling up from it. The vapor caressed her face as the smoke from Thunder Horse's briar pipe danced over his head. The soft crackle and pop of the wood in the campfire was hypnotic. Her silent eyes traced the path of glowing embers wafting into the air, watching them as they burned brightly and then disappeared into the darkness outside of the cozy circle of light.

Even in the darkness, the canyon hummed with life around her. She could finally sense it again, fully, for the first time after that nightmarish attack of agony that had brought her here in the first place. _There are scorpions here,_ she reminded herself. _I must remember to check my bedroll for them before I sleep._ The night shift of the animal kingdom was alive and well. She sensed the skittering of spiders from their lairs and the scampering of the kit fox and coyote on the prowl.

_All this life... odd how someone born to destroy it feels such a connection to it._

She shook off the dark musing. _The fire is...cheering. _Garfield's new 'usual' spot next to her was just a void in the dark now, and its barrenness was keen._ I do wish he were here, though. I can see him here, now, chatting away, talking enough for the both of us, trying to make me laugh. _She allowed a soft smile to creep across her lips. _One of the many great things about Garfield: he does not feel that I have to speak all the time. He is comfortable with my silence. He fills it so easily on his own._

She sipped at the cup again, turning her eyes up to the clear sky above her. She hoped that the incredible view there would ease the emptiness left by his absence. She looked for the star that Jimmy had dubbed her star. It was higher in the sky now, winking down at her like a long-lost friend sharing a secret. Violet eyes drifted away from the single star and watched the Milky Way meander in a lazy river of shining stars high above them. The longer she stared, the more stars she saw. The vast number of pinpricks of light swimming there made her a little dizzy after a moment. Her gaze returned to the fire in front of her. _I have not seen a fire like this since the camping trip with my first team of Titans, _she thought. _My first real family. _She laughed softly to herself. _And I told my story, then, as well. Is it firelight that makes me so...talkative? Or just the stars? Or the air? Or—_

"Buffalo nickel for your thoughts, Dawn Child," Thunder Horse said as he poured himself another mug of hot cocoa. "You were a million miles away there for a moment."

"No," she replied, "Just a few years in the past."

"Do you feel ready to talk to me about that past?"

"I think so, but to do so," she began as she adjusted her perch against the door of the Jeep, "I need for you to listen only with your – your Lakota Heart."

He nodded. "All right, little sister. All right. Take your time."

She gripped the tin cup more tightly, feeling the heat give a slight burn to her skin. The brief pain brought her focus back to the moment.

"The woman you call Angela, my mother, was known to me by another name. I did not know her real name, or her last name, until a few months ago. To me, she was Arella. And for many years, she was a stranger to me."

She continued her story, in as calm a voice as she could muster.

"You often speak of being half in one world and half in another. I, too, live in two worlds, but for a vastly different reason. It is the reason I have the...abilities...that you have seen – those abilities that would have me called a witch or even," she continued, remembering her recent foray into Native American lore, "among those we met tonight – a skinwalker."

Charlie puffed on his pipe. He removed it from his mouth in slow motion. A grave look crossed his face. "Do not say that word here lightly, little one. People here take such things seriously. Very seriously."

"I never use words lightly," she replied evenly. She spread her hands before the flames of the campfire and let the heat soak into them. "I read about such things before I came here. I believe they might fear me the same way that many fear me, except they have a stronger word for it." She set the tin cup down on the ground and hugged her knees to her chest. "It seems that everyone is more eager to fear me than to know me."

He leaned forward and looked at her with kind eyes. "I do not fear you. I never have. You have great gifts. The gift of healing came from your mother's family, I am certain. It can be a difficult life, that of an empath. I know that. But it does not have to be so painful that you cannot live a full life. And you don't have to feel that everyone is afraid of you."

"Not all of my abilities come from _your_ family, cousin. That is the difficult part of telling this story."

"You mean, your 'other' world?"

"Yes." She breathed deeply before continuing. "My father's world."

"Ah, yes, the mysterious father." He removed the pipe from his mouth and checked the bowl. He noticed her watching him. "Ah, the pipe. It lets me listen better – helps this old fool keep his mouth shut when others are talking. Keep going."

The sweet smell of his burning tobacco hung in the air like incense. It was a comforting smell. _Not as comforting as a wet canine, but it will do for now._

"My father is...is not...human." _Here we go._

His brow furrowed. "Not human? As in an alien? That is not entirely outlandish. Isn't your friend Star--Star—"

"Starfire. Yes, she is alien. But my father is not truly an alien –"

She continued the long, tortured story: of the cult that had used her mother, of her demon father, of the Azarath-shaking event of her birth, of the near-goddess Azar that had raised her, of coming to earth to seek others like her to fight her father and of the many battles they fought against him. Of her first death in that last battle at the hands of her own friends. As her words played out and clung to the tobacco smoke, the furrow in Charlie's brow deepened. The moon continued its trek through the night as her story poured from her. His barriers were up to her, so she was not sure which heart – the Lakota's or the Doctor's – was listening right now. And she was not sure if she would wake up in her sleeping bag or a strait jacket in the morning.

_I am feeling holes in the night around me, empathic holes._ The ground below her began to feel empty, as if she would sink through it at any moment. _I must be creating that feeling myself. This task is not an easy one._

She recounted that brief time after her father's defeat, that time when her robes were white. It was a time she had pushed from her mind. The freedom she had felt then – so brief a blip on her radar that it was more like a dream – was painful to remember. The betrayal by gentle Joseph was almost too much to bear dwelling upon. It was that betrayal that had turned her dark again. It was that betrayal that led to her second death. A wistful bitterness rose in her throat as the words spilled from her. _Oh, Jericho, you only sought to help me. The Wildebeest business – my responsibility, not yours. And now your kind soul lives only a disk, locked away in a digital prison._ She could sense her cousin taking in not only her story but her patchwork feelings about it as well, and she could feel his reflecting those same emotions back out into the darkness outside the warm circle of the fire. She could feel that reflection as surely as she felt the pricking in her mind of those holes in the dark. They felt closer now.

_It is just the coldness of my tale. That is all._

And she had thought – again – when she was pure spirit wandering the earth a short time ago – that she was free. That freedom lasted until she discovered herself fighting gravity again, her naked body dripping with the blood from which it was formed. It lasted until she found herself bound in stone by that moon-white Sebastian. She could still feel the roughness of the rock chafing the skin from her wrists and ankles. Sometimes in her dreams she was still locked in that suffocating hole, cold granite and hot blood pressing up against her. She could still smell the rotten flesh on his breath as his lips reached for her...

"—and the other Titans rescued me from Brother Blood just a little while before you and I met."

Charlie's pipe had long ago gone out, but it still sat between his teeth. He stared into the fire, whose flames were much lower now, for a long time without speaking. His heart was a closed book to her.

"So much for your being from Utah. A strange tale," he replied quietly. "A very strange tale. Dear Angela seeks a family. And she finds one. In a very bitter way, I think."

_Will he hate me now? Will he fear me? Of course he will, everyone thinks I am the daughter of hell—_

"Coyote bit her, I think. And bit you, too, my sweet child. I must think on this." He tapped his pipe and began to clean it with a metal tool. "You must be tired – I don't think I have ever heard you speak for so long at a sitting! Go to your tent and sleep, Dawn Child. Some of this talk should not be done in the dark. We can talk about this more in the morning."

(break)(break)

The motorcycle bearing the young green hero sped along the dirt road as he searched for the ranch. The address had been easier to find than he had hoped. The only motorcycle dealership in town was also the only car repair shop in town. The only car repair shop that Charlie was able to use. A couple of autographed pictures from _Space Trek: 2022_ later, and Gar had everything he needed.

"Please be there. Please be there," he chanted.

The darkness here was so different from the darkness of San Francisco. Even with the light of the moon and the stars above him, the blackness seemed to press in on him. The only light on the ground was that of his headlight shining ahead of him on the road cut into the parched earth.

A cluster of buildings loomed ahead. _No lights on. They could be asleep. Please be there_.

He parked the motorcycle and barely took the time to shut it off before running to what looked like the main house. He pounded his fist against the front door. _Please be here, baby, be here. And, oh, God, I hope I'm wrong about Charlie. I didn't get you away from Blood Junior just to have you taken by a Terminator wanna-be._

There was no answer to his repeated knocks on the door. _Time for the under-the-door-trick again, Rave. I've got to find you. I've got to know you're all right._

In the form of a sun-spider, he slipped under the door. A quick scan of the open room revealed it was empty of people, so he shifted to his blood-hound persona and sniffed the floor for traces of her scent.

_She was here...and here..._

He followed the trail down the long hallway. The scent was strongest in the middle bedroom on the left. _Here. No trace of fear. None at all. So she was fine when she was here. _

_So where is she now?_

He circled the interior of the house once, twice, three times. He found no evidence of a problem other than the complete absence of people. He slipped back out underneath the front door and continued his search of the outer buildings as a coyote. _I'll blend in better in the dark – everyone is the same color if there's no light, _he thought. _So many smells here, hard to sort them out. A dog. He's gone, too. Horses. She was here. And over here... _

_So where is she now? Did you take her somewhere else, Charlie? What have you done to her? _He cursed to himself the longest string of the most vulgar words he could conjure.

_Why did Cyborg let you take her?_

_And why didn't I stop him? Damn. How could I just _sleep_ through your taking her?_

The exhaustion of his search was beginning to catch up with him. _Can't rest now...gotta find her..._

But they had left in a vehicle, and her scent always stopped at the tire tracks next to his parked motorcycle. _Gotta stop, gotta think, where would they go from here?_

_Where?_

_Where?_

He turned his coyote nose to the sky and felt a howl rip out of his chest. It was his first release of the tension he had been carrying for weeks, and it echoed across the open plain that rolled up to the canyons that surrounded the ranch.

(break)(break)

_She sleeps just above_, the pursuing shadow murmured to itself. _She hurts. She hurts like I hurt long ago. _

_I hate the hurt._

_I hate the pain._

_But the pain means she's becoming like me. And when she does...her pain will end. _

He lifted his small light higher against the wall of the cave. His dark eyes reflected the illumination. Strong hands stroked the drawings that she had uncovered that day. He traced the reds and the yellows staining the ancient rock with his fingers.

_The red demon haunts my dreams. It sends me to you, Dawn Child. Tells me I need you. Calls you by another name. The Arjh-no-ree. The sacred one. The heart of the burning star. She tells me you can take away this curse._

_And now I know from your story tonight – the demon is you._

_Or _was_ you._

_So I know you can save me. Save me, Raven_.

Somewhere in the distance, a coyote's wistful cry greeted the night sky. He heard the stirrings in her tent. He extinguished his light.

_Tomorrow, Raven. Tomorrow._

(break)(break)

A long desolate howl invaded her sleep. She bolted upright as it roused her from lonely dreams. Those dreams were the last barrier between her and that biting, tearing resurgence of phantom pain. She choked back an answering wail of her own. Her eyes watered as the pain jarred her bones, and her skin burned in fine pinpricks of acid fire. She sank her teeth into the heel of her hand in a desperate attempt to hold back the moans that ached to escape. A scream wormed its way around in her chest, not only at the return of this unwelcome visitor but at the sudden void of life surrounding her. The throbbing in her small form cut her off from that desert song that she had heard a short while before.

_I cannot let him drug me again...not again..._

She tried to focus on something, anything, but the meditative state she sought eluded her. The hollows of her mind began to fill with static, and it was difficult to think. The tepid water in the canteen at her side only made her choke and sputter when she attempted to wet her parched throat. Huddling in her sleeping bag, she shivered, not sure if she were boiling or freezing.

_Why this – why this pain? What is wrong with me? What is happening? Beloved ... where are you? Hurt...I hurt..._

Her hand brushed the front of her hip and felt a square lump resting there. Reaching into her pocket, her shaking fingers retrieved the green chunk of candy. The wrapper stuck to it, and it was warm from her body heat. The sweetness and sourness of it soothed her as it melted on her tongue, and the static clouding her brain cleared a little. Her dream of a few days before came back to her, where the blond version of him asked how she preferred him to be.

_It matters not. I will take you any way I can get you_, she mused.

The pain receded a bit when faced with this tiny green delicacy. Focusing on the flavor distracted her from its fire. As the candy melted down, the knots in her muscles began to relax. The substitute taste of him tickled her memory, and she imagined him next to her, curled up behind her and breathing softly against her neck. She shivered again, but this time it was with a mischievous glee; not too long ago even fantasizing about touch was taboo to her.

_My 'rest' here does not help the pain. But he does. Even the thought of him does. Does that mean this is real?_

The agony simmered down to a tolerable level as the sense of life around her began to return. There were holes in that sensuous circle, but she was sure that they would be filled again with time. She swallowed the last sliver of the candy before drifting off to a more peaceful sleep than before, letting the lullaby of night life surround her.

_Tomorrow, if I am strong enough, I will go home. Where I belong._

_I can be strong enough. And I will find out if this is real._

(break)(break)

A/N:

The Titans' camping trip that she is thinking about is the one that took place in the _Tales of the Teen Titans_ mini-series. Here, the Wolfman/Perez era Titans took a vacation to the Grand Canyon. Four of the Titans told their "backstories" by firelight over four separate nights. In order, the stories were told by: Cyborg, Raven, Garfield (then the Changeling), and Starfire. An excellent mini-series to read if you can find it.

The current Brother Blood is referred to by DeTroyes as "Junior". I thought that would be a good name to use here.


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 17

She slept later than she thought she ever could. The walls of her tent fairly glowed in the light of the morning sun. The savory scents of a breakfast brewing over a fire caressed her nose.

"I sense you're awake now, Dawn Child," Charlie called through the tent door. "Come and enjoy this fine morning with me."

His emotional barriers were still as strong as ever, but he was allowing a peppermint-like cheerfulness to permeate the campsite. She crawled out of the sleeping bag with a slow deliberateness, unsure of what regard he would have for her now that her story had had time to incubate in his heart.

She blinked in the bright sunlight as she stretched the night out of her creaky joints. _The sky is so crisp, so clear here,_ she thought. _Peaceful moments, like this, rare and precious jewels to me._ She tried to imagine what comment Garfield would make about it. _He is the only thing missing._ She found herself balancing on the balls of her feet as she felt the breeze kiss her face._ It is all I can do to keep my feet on the ground. I want to taste that blue._

"This whole canyon sings," she said, half to her cousin and half to herself.

"It does indeed," he replied. "Especially to those who listen. Tea?"

She nodded as she accepted the steaming cup from him. It was difficult to look him in the eye.

"You're worried," he observed. "Worried about your story?"

Her eyes moved to him at last; she was unused to being read by others. She was irritated with herself for letting her guard down so easily.

"Yes," she replied. It was the only reply she could give.

"Please, sit while we eat. I'll tell you why you have no need to worry. The men in the white coats couldn't find this place with a GPS and night goggles, anyway." He chuckled at his own joke while she sat across the fire pit from him.

He took a long, serious sip from his own mug before he began. "I stayed up into the night considering everything you told me. I am glad I listened with my Lakota heart. My doctor's heart would have diagnosed a hundred different conditions that would explain such a tale: multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, even a messiah complex, after a fashion. But my doctor's heart cares little for the great gifts that you possess. What I have seen makes me more inclined to believe what you say is true. My doctor's heart says that you are damaged from years of emotional abuse. My Lakota heart says the same, that you have been cruelly used by many who see you as a tool, an instrument, and not a living, breathing person."

Her hands shook as he spoke. Hot tea began spilling over her fingers. Placing the cup on the ground, she shook the burning liquid off and wiped her hands against her pants.

He watched her shake. His eyes closed for a while, giving her a private moment to collect herself. "I know it is never easy to hear such things, Raven. These things are never easy to overcome. The doctor in me would prescribe years of intense therapy to overcome the layers of abuse you have endured. The Lakota in me says that you need a home, a stable place, a family that surrounds you and loves you as a Human Being. It also says that along with accepting such love, you must give up the hate you feel towards those who have hurt you, from your father on down." He raised his hands as she began to protest. "Don't dare tell me that you do not hate them. I felt the venom rise in you as you told your tale last night. It is fine to feel anger at them, and fine to fight what they have done to you."

He paused and took another sip from his mug. His eyes focused on a point above her head, and for a moment she felt the barriers in his mind lower. An odd sadness leaked over those walls, the kind of sadness one feels on hearing about a past that cannot be changed. That sadness soaked in to the ground and into the sky and overcame the cheerfulness she had felt just a moment ago. Then his eyes returned to her own face, and they watched each other for long, quiet moments before he spoke again.

"But do not waste your energy hating them the rest of your life. Fighting for what you believe in does _not_ degrade you, as your former teachers would have you believe. There are times when you have to accept what you are given with grace, and there are times when you are meant to fight against it to make something better. True wisdom will show you the difference. But hating does degrade you. Because you become what you hate. Surely, in the events of your own life, you must see that."

She sat there in stunned silence. The hint of a tear gathered in the corner of her eye as she felt herself fill up with a strange emotion that she knew he was projecting at her: a sense of belonging. That sense pushed down her own rising tide of anger and regret that this conversation was awakening.

He walked around the fire pit and sat down next to her. His two hands engulfed hers as he studied her face. "Let us be your true home," he said, a great tenderness in his voice. "Karen and I would welcome you into our family. You are part of our tribe. Finish your education here, with people of your own Lakota Heart. Live long enough to finally grow up, here in this life-filled land whose song you hear. Give up the life of a superhero and live a new adventure. Dawn Child, come and live with us."

Raven stared at her cousin, not sure of what to say. Her words trembled as they spilled into the morning air. "Give up the Titans? Come here? To live?" _Away from him?_

Thunder Horse flashed her a fatherly smile while he increased that warm scent of belonging around her. "Yes. To live a peaceful life. A full life. One with the danger behind you."

"But – but – it is all I know," she stammered. "I don't know how to live among – among –"

"Regular people? Without your friends? You don't know now, but you can learn. You can learn anything you really wish to. And you'll learn to lose that 'I am a demon' attitude. From what I know of you, you certainly are no demon. Born to be an angel? Born to be a devil? It doesn't work that way, little sister. Good and evil are a matter of choice and intention, not genetics. You are proof of that."

She looked at the ground, taking in his words. _A matter of choice. I've never felt like I even had a choice. I just did what I had to do._

He continued. "No one puts their lives, their very souls, on the line for a world they've never known like you have without great love in their heart. You're a creature of love, Raven, no matter who your father is. Love is not just that warm fuzzy in someone's heart, more than just the part that you've had to shut out all these years. It's action. It's in your deeds. And your deeds show that you are full of love. Only you cannot see that." He laughed faintly. "We empaths tend to have a blind spot when it comes to reading ourselves. Or people we care for deeply. But Karen and I can help you with that. Help you see that 'demon' is a choice, not a species."

She wiped away the tear threatening at the edge of her eye. _A choice_. _Despite myself, the offer is... tempting. A home._ "Karen does not know my story – are you so sure she would –"

"Karen has lived with me long enough to know that there are many strange and wonderful things in the waking world and in the spirit world. And she understands much about good and evil. I admit she's a little rough around the edges, but she's a real jewel to me. You have yet to hear her story as well."

He picked up her mug of tea and handed it to her. "Still your shaking, sweet child. You do not have to answer now. You have all the time in the world to think about it."

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"Dawn Child," Charlie said, "I need to go make a few phone calls at the ranger station. The cell towers are out of range up here. It's about an hour's drive, so I'll be gone a bit. Do you want to stay and keep working? You should be safe for a few hours, at any rate."

_I feel strong enough to go home, I think. I should be able to avoid any danger_. _After I find what I need, I will return to San Francisco. Maybe this afternoon. Garfield would still have time to pick out our movie-- I'd rather stay here and finish as early as I can rather than rumbling about –_

"I will stay," she answered. "I will be fine, cousin."

An hour working alone was very quiet, indeed. She sensed very little movement in the area around the cave. Some of those holes she had felt last night danced around. _My empathy must still be in recovery from that pain. Oh, Azar, maybe those days of pain are over._

Needing some fresh air, she stepped to the entrance to breathe in the blue. On the sunny ledge outside the cave, Raven stretched her arms into the sky, glad to be out of the darkness for a little while. Sitting down and leaning back against a rocky outcropping, she turned her face to the sun and let it warm her skin. Even through her closed eyes, she could sense the light, with a light red tinge on the edge of her vision. And those holes felt ...larger...

_The morning goes well_, she thought. _I can face that wall a little better today, try to make some sense of what it says. And what it means –_

Her cousin was gone. Raven stretched her limbs skyward once more, no longer fighting the urge to fly. Except for that persistent blind spot on the edge of her senses, she was alone.

Balancing on the balls of her feet, she drank in the hot air of the morning. _Let us see how strong I am_, she thought. _Let me see if I am strong enough to make the leap home_.

The pressure on her toes lessened as the weight of her body lifted above the ground. She hovered for a brief moment, then pushed off into the mouth of the canyon. Following the canyon floor like a riverbed, she soared above the desert.

_What freedom, to fly like this, to see for miles_. Flying inside a body was so different from flying as her soulself. Her soul couldn't feel the wind, couldn't sip the heat of the sun. _To fly and be whole, how wonderful to taste the sky_._ I have not flown for...a very long time. I have missed it. Truly missed it._

There was a peace here, a peace she did not know was possible. _How odd, _she mused as she rose higher and higher into the blue, _that I should feel such peace here, where we were hurt... _

The _we_ stuck in her thoughts, and the other half of the _we_ appeared in her mind's eye. _In all the years and the days, I never would have thought that you and I would be we, Garfield. But I thought or did not think then matters not. Only now matters._

She glanced at her wrist, where he had ridden along with her. And she smiled the broadest smile she could summon without swallowing any of the insects that were traveling with her. _And now, I wish you were here._

Control of her flight was so easy now. Her resident aches and pains had receded for the moment into a background haze, a haze that she had long ago learned to tolerate and almost ignore. Crystals embedded in the rocks below glistened like moonlight on the sea. The canyons stretched out to either side of her, rolling waves in an ocean of red and tan sandstone that she remembered from her first trip here. But the view did not make her homesick for the rocky spires of long-lost Azarath this time. Instead, it felt like...home itself.

She slowed herself to a stop in midair, pushing her arms straight out from her sides to decelerate. _Home?_ she asked herself. _Charles has offered me a home here, just this morning. An actual home. With an actual dog. A mother. A mother who can teach me the knowledge I am lacking. A life of peace? Can I really have that? A life without constantly fighting evil? A life of retiring to a quiet bed a the end of every quiet day?_

A hot breeze stirred strands of hair that had escaped her braid. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the dusty wake of a vehicle along the distant canyon wall and thought it would be better to move along without being seen. With a light kick, she pushed forward again with that thought ringing through her mind. There was so much glowing life here that individual beings were hard to differentiate. They all blended together. She even thought she felt a hint of Garfield there...but no, not here. The circle of feelings had a break in it. There was a hole in the bright day, and it was more than just Beast Boy's absence. That hole, so elusive and vague before, was evolving from a simple blind spot into a palpable entity. It scratched the back of her psyche like a broken fingernail.

_This is not right. I must find this hole._

She alighted on a high perch on the rim of the canyon. Dropping to one knee, she scanned the landscape below her. Her internal commentary continued as she searched for that hole.

_And a life without my green one. Without his constant banter. Without his strange jokes that I have no hope of understanding. Without his laughter. Without his charming scent. Without his stealing a kiss when no one is looking._ She leaned forward and squinted into the bright light, still sensing but not quite finding that gaping void in the margins of her senses._ How...boring._

The memory of those strong arms cuddled her mind, and she could almost feel his lips against her face. _I am sorry I have not let you...past that line. _Prickly red heat crept up her cheeks. _Oh, my Garfield. You are so patient – your desire burns as a beacon, but you never complain. Can it truly be real this time? I have to know..._

The empathic void was creeping closer, nearer, almost breathing on her. But from which direction? Her eyes found only sky and sandstone. One single booming sound echoed down the canyon from a great distance, but other than that the area was quiet. Her head turned to the source of the noise, but it was too far away to determine exactly where it was. Her thoughts continued to meander through her mind.

_Oh, my beloved one, I am so afraid. I am tired of being afraid. That wall is rebuilding now that I am faced with my own desire for you. I am not afraid of you but the...act...of being held down...of feeling...trapped—_

"You are a graceful eagle, Dawn Child."

She gasped at the hoarse whisper slipping into her ear. She spun around to find its source. No footfall, no crunch of pebble, no breath, no heat had given away his presence behind her. A pillar of black blocked the sky behind him, and a hood shaded his face. His arms spread wide towards her, and his hands were empty.

"You were so bright. I almost could not see you, Raven. So fearless. So beautiful. My Rachel."

_He knows my names. All of them._

The Black Rose had found her at last. But how could she say found when it suddenly seemed that it had been with her all along in the form of—

"Charles."

He remained silent.

"You know you cannot trap me here, cousin."

The hidden face tilted to one side, as if the wraith were smiling at her. "I know, child. Your last escape from me was very impressive, very clever. You are indeed part of my tribe."

He was the hole in the desert, rooted right in front of her. She could no more read him now than she could before.

"Why do you hound me, cousin? You ask me to stay with you with great kindness in your eyes, and then you threaten me with your theatrics? What do you hope to accomplish?"

The hood bowed forward, and the gloved fingers spread wider. "I am not Charlie. Charlie made me. Made me with his medicine. And I am not here to threaten you."

"But you have tried to kill me. Twice."

"The first time we met, I did not know you. Not until I had tasted your fears. Then I knew you were of my tribe. The second time we met, I was merely trying to get your attention. To tell you we have a bond. That we are family."

He took a step closer to her. She countered with a step back and away.

"Cousin, I know that we are family...why—"

"I am not your cousin. _That_ family was a lifetime ago. But you can bring me back to family. We can understand each other. I alone can know the depth of terror that torments you. I alone can love you like family. The cousin you know cannot understand that. Not like I can."

_Split personality?_ Her mind ran through as many possibilities as it could without empathic input. _Possession? Oh, my cousin, are we this much alike?_

"An eater of fear like you craves love? I find your 'love' a thousand times more frightening than your hate."

"You consume emotions, too, Dawn Child. Do you not crave love yourself? Do you not now have desire for your family in San Francisco?"

Raven forced her tense muscles to release their tightness, trying to move them into a state of relaxed alertness, ready to move at any moment. _He knows too much to be anyone else._

"If you are not Charles, then you know much of what he knows."

The arms did not move. Only the hot wind stirred the edges of his hood. The smell of his sweat lingered in the bright sun, and the sound of his breathing was suddenly audible. His voice scratched the air around them.

"I have ears. I hear. I have eyes. I see. I have read your letters. I have watched your love for the green one grow. I have eaten the fear you have for Brother Blood. For Sebastian."

Raven's spine crackled as if it had been plunged into icy water. He was close. Too close.

He continued his press forward. "I have guarded you in your sleep. I have eaten your fear to chase the darkness from your dreams. Is this not what a father does?"

She shivered in the scorching sun. Perspiration mixed with the chemical scent of sunscreen trickled down her back, but her sweat was cold.

_Azar! So close—and I never knew it—when? When was he there?_

"I could have taken your life a hundred different times in a thousand different ways if that was my wish, child. But I don't wish to take your life. I wish to give you a new one."

"With you? As a killer?" _Need help—cannot leave now – he'll disappear --he'll just keep coming. And coming._ She felt the stirrings of her aggressive soulself within her. _End this now, _it snarled over the roaring of blood in her ears.

"I only kill to eat the fear. Fear is not the means to an end. It is the end. Fear is all I can taste. And I am weary of it. I need more than the fear to feed me. You can sense for me. You can feed me with your courage, light, life, that you draw from others for me. With fear, I am a ghost. But with you, I can live. I can stop killing. I will no longer need the Black Rose. We belong together, father and child. I alone can protect you from Sebastian. You alone can save me."

He stepped forward again, arms sweeping in an attempt to capture her in an embrace. She shuffled back, muscles again tensed and ready to flee.

_My training – too weak against him—like Deathstroke. Think Terminator here_, her soulself growled at her. It was seething to protect her, as it always had, even though it was her, just the aggressive part of her. The part of her that felt she was worth protecting. _More than one way to use your aikido here. Use his strength and his weakness against him._

Raven held up her hands. "Do not touch me," she warned him. "You may think me weak, but I will not allow you to harm me." She slid one foot behind her, searching for the edge of her perch with her toes.

_Yes_, her fighting side hissed. _His weakness. He can only move in two dimensions. _

"My sweet Rachel, I would never raise my hands to you. I am begging you. My life is a never-ending nightmare. Save me."

_Get control of this, Raven. Take him down. Your way._

The figure continued his shuffled towards her. "I don't want to rule the heavens, like your demon father. I just want to live."

Her toes located the drop off. Raven shifted her weight to her front leg.

_I can become invisible. I can become something he cannot see. Then I can...can..._

She stretched out with her power, and all the desert life that had been singing to her that morning greeted her. From the tiniest mosquito to the longest rattlesnake to the highest hawks gliding overhead, she could feel that life pulsing through the maze of the canyon. All of that sheer, primal joy just shimmered in a bright cloud around her, a cloud that she knew he could not sense. She let that joy gather behind her eyes. The raging white soul self seeped out of her and concealed her in the sunlight dancing behind her. Those soul eyes kept watch for her pursuing shadow.

And in broad daylight, she began to fade from his view.

"I love you, my child. Why do you run?"

In one swift motion, he leaned heavily at her, dark embrace open to claim her before she disappeared from him completely, and she swept away into the open air. His arms clasped the empty space where she had been. Losing his balance, he pitched forward; his torso pulling him across the boundary of rosy sandstone into the blue. The man plummeted from the edge of the cliff, answering the siren call of gravity that she was able to resist. Gray dust and shards of red sandstone tumbled in his wake. He twisted in the sky, and only silence escaped his tumbling spirit.

_I am no killer_.

She released her soulself, which was chafing to be set free. She guided it, that bright and fierce portion of her soul, to unfurl itself between the falling man and the canyon floor that was rapidly rushing to welcome him. His empty hands reached for the shimmering form as a child would reach for his mother, crying aloud in a sing-song chant with words she could not understand.

_Sleep_, the soulself sang to him, soothing the chaos and confusion that she knew was lurking in his own mind, even if she could not taste it directly. _Sleep_.

And for a moment, before her bright soul captured him, his hood fell back and exposed his features to daylight at last.

His snow-white hair.

His snapping black eyes.

Not Charles. Not her cousin.

But Thunder Horse.

_Grandfather!_

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	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 18

Dawn was long gone when Karen pulled up to the main house. Old Bill leaped out of the cab as she opened the door. He made a beeline for the figure slumped in the porch swing. The mutt snarled at him as the man jumped up, suddenly awake.

"Beast Boy?" she called out to him.

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand as he growled back at the canine in front of him, giving the dog time to catch his scent. Old Bill plopped down in front of him and half-whined, half-barked a question at Karen.

"S'okay, Bill, we know him. Not too many little green men running around in the desert, these days. You must be Raven's...friend."

Gar wiped the sleep from his eyes. "Where's Raven? Where's Charlie?"

"You get right to the point, don't you? They went camping while I went to see my folks last night. They went down to the cave you guys found—"

"Can you give me directions?" The frustration leaked through his words. "It's urgent."

"Urgent? You're not just here to—"

"I think she's in danger."

"Danger? And nobody else to keep an eye on Charlie? Well, honey, driving you there would be faster than telling you, the road is so windy." She pointed to the truck and stripped off her jacket. "Get in."

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Karen stared at her passenger. She had just described Charlie's army days to him, but he had just provided a very strange alternate ending to them.

"Darlin'," she replied with an incredulous look in her eyes, "you've got to be kidding me! I love my husband, but if there's one thing I know about him, is that he's an eccentric academic who gets lost in his own study without me there to hold his hand. He can't organize his way out of a phone booth, let alone run an underground mercenary operation."

"But he was in Psy-ops in the army, you said. Couldn't he just be foolin'—"

"Sweetie, let me tell you something." She took a long drag from her cigarette and tapped the ashes out the window. "We got married before he went into the army. You wanna know why they stuck him in Psychological Operations? Because he couldn't make it in the infantry. I'm a better shot than he is. He can't hit the broad side of a canyon wall with an RPG! Him, a sniper? Don't make me laugh."

She shifted gears and squinted at the dusty road ahead. She noticed his eyes following her cigarette as she enjoyed another pull on it. "Sorry, sweetie. I only smoke when I'm nervous. You smoke?"

"Only when I'm on fire."

She chuckled. "So, tell me more about this Black Rose fella. Charlie's helped some in the investigation, but he won't tell me the more dangerous details. Could we be up against something serious when we get there?"

"She...Raven told me he was an empath. Like Charlie. But that he seems to enjoy fear—like he eats it—"

She shook her head with vigor. "Well, then I know that's not my Charlie."

"How?"

"He's not real fond of bein' around someone who's scared. Leaves a bad taste in his mouth, so to speak. He really likes...well...um..." She gave him a conspiratorial wink. "If you ever get laid by an empath, you'll know what I mean."

"I—I wouldn't know. But I can...guess." _Now that's a mental image I just didn't need._

"Goo -ood," she chuckled. "That's good to know. But I don't know what else to tell you to convince you that Charlie's not your man. The man's a teddy bear, but, bless his heart, he doesn't know the business end of a thirty-ought-six from a hole in his head. He wouldn't know what to do with proper ordinance if it jumped up and bit him in the ass. Just please, when we get there, do me a favor and _don't _fly off the handle. Let me talk to him. She'll be there, and she'll be okay, I'm sure. Charlie may be a bit flighty sometimes, but he's very protective of his cousin."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

They drove in silence for a while, the desert boiling in dust behind the truck. Gar fidgeted in his seat, fingering the release on his seat belt. He inspected the dragon tattoo that wound itself around her left arm. It seemed to twist and move with her as her hand turned the steering wheel. Then he glanced out the window, watching the shadows of sky bound birds flit along the ground. _This is taking too long._

"So, why does it take so freaking long to get to this place?" he barked.

She pointed to the distant canyon rim opposite them. "Because it's on _that_ side of the canyon. If we had a bridge right here, we'd be there in ten minutes. As it is, we have to take the scenic route."

He narrowed his eyes. "Would you like to take the _really_ scenic route?"

"Whaddya have in mind?"

"You know what I can do?"

"I assume they don't call you Beast Boy for nothin'."

"Stop the car. I'll get us there."

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Robin settled into the chair in his forensics lab. In his hand was the faxed report from Dr. Sommers at S.T.A.R. labs. The analysis on Compound 27 was complete. _Maybe I can get a head start on it before Cyborg sees it..._

Tim's eyes widened as he read the report again. And again.

This chemical signature looks familiar. Where have I seen it before? Somewhere in the computer files, looking at old dossiers... 

The image of a disk filled his mind.

_Jericho?_

Rotating his chair to the terminal again, he pulled up the Jericho files. He requested the cellular scan analysis that he had retrieved from tape storage. He compared the screen to the purloined readout.

_Oh, great._

He punched a button on the intercom. "Cyborg?"

"Yeah, Robin. I'm down in the garage. Whaddya need?"

"Um, do you know of any possible connections between Dr. Thunder Horse and the Terminator?"

"The who and the what?"

"Just come up to my lab, would you? You're not going to believe this."

(break)(break)

Beast Boy dropped to one knee away from the truck. _Think big, big and flying. The old pterodactyl standby is too small for this. _He reached into his mind, calling up the thought that would best carry the vehicle across the yawning desert floor below. _I'm coming, Raven. But instead of a knight in shining armor this time, you're getting..._

His head dipped low to the ground. His spine shivered as his internal temperature regulation shifted from hot to cold-blooded. His eyes stung as they molded themselves into a more reptilian shape. His mass expanded and his bones melted and reknit, and his skin cells rewrote their DNA sequences to form scales. All of this happened with the speed of a blip on a radar. And where an anxious young man had been kneeling, there was now an emerald green dragon, complete with leathered wings and grasping taloned feet.

"Roll up your window, Karen. It's about to get dusty around here."

The wings swept his new bulk off the ground. He flapped them lightly in the column of sand and dust rolling around him, and he grasped the lower rim of the vehicle's frame. The great lizard-Gar soared into the sky, making a straight line for the distant rock walls and hoping that he was wrong for once.

(break)(break)

They found the Jeep at the campsite above the cave and next to a bewildered archaeologist staring into empty hands.

Karen turned to Beast Boy. 'Why don't you let me—"

But his seat was empty. A green hawk swooped over the truck and aimed itself for the stupefied scientist.

"Where is she?" the hawk shrieked from the air above him. "Is she here?"

"She's gone. I left her in the cave. Just for a little while."

A jade mountain lion pinned him to the door of the Jeep. "Gone? You son of a bitch," he growled. "What did you do? I know who you are. Give her back." His teeth flashed in the hot sun as he pulled back feline lips. "Is she's dead, so help me—"

"She's not dead. She's missing. Back off and we'll—"

"Liar!" Sharp claws slashed at the air in front of him. "You're the one that's been chasing her all along!"

"Beast Boy, I don't know — back off!" The empath's right hand slipped between the muscular forelegs and pushed against the massive furry chest. A surge of energy rushed through that hand, and paralysis bloomed inside Beast Boy's mind for the barest flash of a moment.

In that heartbeat, Charlie slithered out of his grasp and backed away from the vehicle, never taking his eyes off the raging beast that stalked him. Beast Boy shook his head to clear the temporary motionlessness.

"I thought you weren't powerful—"

"Never tell people everything you can do, Mr. Logan." Charlie warned. He braced his hands in a warding gesture in front of him.

"You won't do that again," Gar snarled back. He reformed into a grizzly bear and lumbered towards Charlie.

"I don't intend to let you that close. Now just let me—"

"The only thing I want from you is her location!"

He began ripping into the campsite, tearing the tents out of the ground and rolling the debris at Charlie to throw him off balance. Red tinged the edges of Garfield's vision as he felt the animal part of his brain take complete control. The frantic search for Raven had become a frenzied hunt for a lost mate.

Charlie continued to back away, turning as he did to avoid the high ledge close by. The fury in the green one was boiling by now, and Charlie warded the distant beast away as if he were fending off a vicious assault.

Charlie's breath came in ragged spurts "I'm afraid, too, Mr. Logan. My cousin is gone. Let's find her. Together."

Bear melted into wolf and closed the distance between them with the speed of a shooting star. A leap and a snarl and the wolf rolled Charlie onto his front, pinning his arms underneath him. Four paws pressed down on his back, and iron jaws snapped inches above his bare neck. The wolf did not speak. Hackles high, he was all fur and bone and muscle and teeth.

Charlie grunted. "If you hurt me," he panted, "we'll never find her." Each labored breath pumped its way out from under Beast Boy's weight. A deep rolling growl was his only reply.

The older man twisted his shoulders, rocking back and forth, throwing the beast off balance.

"Enough!" Karen screamed in the background. "Both of you, stop this crazy shit right now!"

But her words were lost in the snapping and snarling. Charlie managed to roll over and hook his arms around his attacker, throwing him down. But the grounded wolf took to the sky as an eagle, swooping back and forth at the standing Charlie.

The empath's hands beat at the grasping talons. "I know you won't hurt me," he gasped. "Or you would have already." Seeing that anger had completely unbalanced his opponent, he swiftly turned the bird in midair by the leg and tossed it to the ground.

A cloud of dust enveloped the two men as a rattlesnake coiled to strike.

(break)(break)

Cyborg's jaw nearly collided with the floor.

"You're telling me that the joy juice he's been pumpin' into our girl is the same serum that made Slade Wilson the Terminator?"

"I'm saying it's a derivative of the same formula. But close enough to make me wonder."

Cyborg's legs gave out as he tried to sit down. The loud clang caused by his collision with the floor reverberated throughout the room and forced Robin to cover his ears. He didn't bother to get up.

Superboy leaned into the room from the hallway. "So, what did that serum do to Slade, anyway?"

Robin cocked an eyebrow at him. "And how long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough."

"Stimulated his adrenal glands. Gave him superhuman strength and speed –"

"That explains a lot," Superboy chuckled softly.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn. Oh, damn!"

"Um, Cyborg, can you say something _useful_?"

"We're screwed. How's that for useful?" He pushed his thumb against the bridge of his nose. "We are so screwed. Damn."

Superboy snorted. "Tim, it must be pretty bad. He never talks like that."

Cyborg grabbed the sides of his head and shook it. "Raven the Terminator? Somebody wake me up. Real life can't be this bad."

"And what's wrong with that?" Superboy replied. "She'd kick some serious—"

"There's more to it than that," Robin said.

"Yeah, but that sicko Brother Blood would think twice before messing with her again, I tell you what."

"It does explain why she's been more aggressive lately," Robin said. "The original serum stimulates adrenaline, right? She must have had it pouring through her when she pushed you down, Con. My question is, how did Charlie get the formula in the first place? Even though that serum made Wilson the Terminator, it doesn't mean Wilson is in possession of the actual formula, does it? I doubt Slade would just sell it and give up his edge over his competition."

(break)(break)

"Stop this!" Karen shouted at the rolling dustball.

There was no answer except the snarling of the two combatants.

"Men," she swore under her breath. She reached into the truck and snatched the AR-15 from its rack. Threading her wrist through the strap, she pulled back the charging handle and released it before she turned off the safety.

_I hate doing this_, she thought as she braced the stock against her shoulder and raised the barrel to the sky. _Not safe. But I don't need to get between them, either._

_Boom!_

Muzzle flash escaped the end of the barrel as its report shocked the two men to attention. The smoking brass cartridge clattered on the ground, and the thunder of the rifle echoed down the canyon.

The two men stared at the petite honey-blonde woman that was glaring at them. They froze: Gar grasping Charlie's jacket in razor-sharp raptor teeth and Charlie poised to punch his vulnerable throat.

"While you two _ass_holes are beating the ever-lovin' _shit_ out of each other, our girl is missing. Now, quit your bickering, get your butts in the trucks, and let's go get a search party together. No one's seen her for at least two hours. She could be anywhere by now."

Beast Boy released Charlie and resumed his human form. Charlie backed off, a sheepish grin creeping across his face.

"Now!" she bellowed. "Or I'll kick _both_ your asses to Santa Fe and back." She reset the safety on the rifle as she pointed the barrel at the ground.

Charlie whispered to Gar, "And she can do it, too."

She stormed up to Charlie and held the rifle out to him. He stepped back from the firearm as if it were a snake coiled to strike him.

She turned to Garfield. "Ok, farmboy, are you satisfied? He won't even touch a Bushmaster. How the hell could you think this man was a mercenary? I told you he was the wrong fella." She stabbed Charlie with an angry glance. "Why'd you leave her out here alone? What if she got sick again?"

(break)(break)

"Okay, now that I've pulled myself together," Cyborg replied, "let's think about this. Could they have gotten it from the same source? And does Charlie know what he really has? And why would he want to—"

He paused, allowing his internal computers to access his audio files of really important conversations. He replayed Raven's debriefing after the hyperbaric chamber incident.

_He told me he wanted to make me like him. And that I had heard his name before. He did not tell me his name. But I did not recognize the voice, either. And I could not read his signature while I was drugged._

Vic replied, "The BRU leader is a merc, a lot like the Terminator, if not as powerful."

"We haven't fought him, Vic. Not directly. We don't know how strong he is."

"Good point, Robin." He thought a moment more. "Damn. This gets worse, doesn't it? Beast Boy may have been right. Charlie. Damn."

"But Charlie was with us when they were attacked way back at Twilight Canyon!"

"Yeah, Superboy, but they could've been working for him at the time. He might not have been seen with those guys, but they could have been with him. Damn. And I handed her over to him!" He balled his hand into a steel fist. "She trusted me, and I sent her right into the lion's den. And she was helpless. Damn."

"You haven't called to check on her?"

"I promised Charlie radio silence unless there was an emergency. He promised to keep her away from the phone unless it was an emergency. Let me beep her." He shook his head as he punched at buttons on the console. "The kid really needed a break. She just never gets one, does she?"

Cyborg stared at the console for a moment.

"Well?" Superboy asked.

"She's not picking up. Hold on. Gonna go check somethin'."

He jogged out of the room and headed for the elevators. He returned, some minutes later, with a heavy, slow footstep. He was holding a softly beeping communicator. Worry and anger was etched across his one brown eye. "I found this stashed under one of the pillows in the infirmary."

Robin returned his look. "What do we do now?"

"We get her back. We can start at his house – maybe he thinks we haven't figured it out yet."

"Well, Beast Boy is out there wandering around in the desert looking for her. Do you think you can tell him where Charlie's place is now? He might beat us there."

"And beat the hell out of me, too." Cyborg punched in the call code for Beast Boy. "C'mon, greenie, pick up," he whispered into his arm.

"No answer there either?"

"None, Connor. Must've turned it off."

"He's probably still pissed at you, Vic."

"Yeah, I know. Damn." He picked up the phone and dialed the number stored in his internal address book. The phone rang twenty times before he gave up. "No answer at Charlie's." He tried another number. "No answer on his cell, either. Damn."

"You need to think of a new word, Vic. You're gonna wear that one out."

"Load up the T-jet, fellas. We're going back to Twilight Canyon. Let's go get our girl."

"But I thought it was down for maintenance."

"Damn."

(break)(break)

Gar swiveled his head back and forth between them, confusion written across his forehead.

"She's been fine, sweetheart—"

"Did you give her that drug again? Charlie!"

"Well, yes...but back at the ranch...before you made me promise—"

"_Charlie!"_ Gar and Karen barked in unison.

Charlie frowned back at them. "The formula is better now, Karen. It—"

"Whoa!" Gar held his hands up. "Hold it right there, Charlie Horse. What are you talking about? What have you been injecting my girlfriend with, exactly? Tell me now, or so help me—"

"She's fine," Charlie replied through clenched teeth.

"Tell that to your grandfather," Karen hissed. "Thunder Horse could tell you all about it. If he were still alive."

"You can't seem to forgive me, can you, Karen? I was only trying to help him. All I've ever tried to do is help."

A growl was brewing in Gar Logan's chest as he listened.

She gripped the stock of the rifle more tightly. The scaly reptile on her left arm twitched as her muscles hardened. "You helped him all right. Right into the grave. That sweet old man. Tell him where the drug came from, Charlie Thunder Horse."

Her husband's eyes focused their misery on the ground. Beast Boy's hand became a hard fist behind his back. It was all he could do to contain his fury at the man long enough to hear him out. The dragon lingering in his system was roaring.

"Please, understand, all I have ever wanted to do was help people like me. Like my grandfather. He was amazing. He could heal so many. But he could never... he couldn't heal himself. I loved him, admired him so much, I couldn't stand to see him hurt. You've felt it, Mr. Logan, that helplessness that you feel when a healer is screaming from a pain that won't go away until they die."

Gar nodded, in spite of himself. The tendons in his neck creaked with the movement.

Charlie's words trembled their way out of his mouth. "When I was in the Army, I assisted in a study of drugs that would help soldiers resist truth serums. During the trials, I found that one drug had...other effects. One variation of it could temporarily shut down pain receptors in the brain, which in empaths also shuts down their empathy. For a while."

Green muscles jerked with nervous restraint. _Truth serum. Army. Why does this sound familiar?_

The older man raised his face to them with tears dancing in his eyes. "I developed the variant drug on my own when I left the Army. I went through twenty iterations before I found the one I was willing to use on people."

"Damn that Compound 20," Karen muttered.

He looked stricken. "I used it to help my grandfather. So many people he'd healed. So much pain. But, the dear man wouldn't stop, would he, Karen? He was falling apart—"

"And you took the shortcut! The easy way!"

"Easy? No, the way I saw it, it was the only way. The only way."

Karen continued, "But it didn't work. It wasn't the way."

"It was too strong. The temporary effect became permanent. It was like...like it shut him off from the rest of the world. He withdrew from us more and more, until one day he went into a coma. And then...his heart...it just stopped. Like Coyote had struck me again--"

"Coyote, my ass," Karen retorted. "It was just you, Charlie. Not some mythical creature out to get everybody. Just you."

Her face softened as she watched the man's tears flow, unchecked, down his cheeks.

"Sweet old man," Karen reached over to touch his arm with her free hand. "We tried to bury him in the traditional ways, in the open air on scaffolding in the canyon, like he would've wanted. And, damn it, if someone didn't up and steal his body, too."

Charlie covered his eyes with his hands. "We thought the Army might have done it. That maybe they knew what I had done and wanted to do...tests. But we never found anything about it. As far as we know, they never found out about Compound 20. He was just...gone. But I wanted to keep helping people. So, seven iterations later, we have—"

"Compound 27," Gar growled. "I wonder what the _other_ effects are. When you first gave it to her, weeks ago, you asked me to trust you. And I did." He thrust his finger into Charlie's agonized face. " I _never_ should have trusted you. She trusted _me_. Damn." He pounded his fist against his forehead. "And since then, it seems like her pain is getting worse, especially after...after..."

"An adrenaline rush?"

"Yes, how did you—oh, no. No, no, no, no."

The pieces began to click into place.

The Army.

Truth serum resistance.

Adrenaline.

Coma.

Slade Wilson. The Terminator.

Same drug.

Dead Grandfather.

Missing Body.

_Click_.

Beast Boy's heart skipped a beat. A few more beats. His lips curled back from his fanged teeth. "I don't think your grandfather's dead, Charlie. And I think he's here. In the canyon. With Raven."

Karen and Charlie's faces were thunderstruck.

"Let's go get help, like Karen said. We're going to need it."

(break)(break)

A/N: Most readers should be familiar with Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke the Terminator. He's a mercenary that has been around since the 80s Titans issue #2. He is probably my favorite Titan Enemy! But for this chapter to make sense, you need to know his back story. Here it is in a nutshell, based on information from "The Judas Contract" trade paperback:

While Slade Wilson was a soldier in the Army, he volunteered for some medical experiments that involved resistance to truth serums. The serum was an experimental hormone meant to stimulate the adrenal glands. It gave him superhuman strength and reflexes. It also gave him the ability to use 90 of his brain capacity (as opposed to the proverbial 10 most of us are supposed to use).

Raven with heavy adrenaline surges?

Now you know why Cyborg is so concerned.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 19

The campsite was completely derailed. It reeked of scorn and worry, but not of death or blood. _Charlie has come and gone, _she concluded. _And with—but no, that is just my wishing for him. Some wild animal has destroyed our equipment._

She gathered the intact pieces – a pocketknife, a flint firestarter, a canteen – and glided down to the mouth of the cave, where she had lain the still body of Thunder Horse. _Heavens! He must think it attacked me as well! I must remain here until he returns And I cannot take this man back to the house, and I dare not leave him alone._

Day was melting into evening. She collected the remnants of wooden crates in the cave and started a fire, the way she had seen Charlie do it the night before, remembering the way she had done it many years before, when she had saved – but no, that memory did not bear thinking about. After a few false starts, firelight soon reflected off the rocky wall, and smoke laced the musty air in the cave. Dancing glyphs mocked her with their hidden meanings. Moisture from the stones seeped up her back as she scanned the unconscious form before her: a shadow of a man. She hugged her knees in a vain attempt to get warm.

_It all fits together,_ she thought. _The picture frame sighing about guilt. A grandfather we thought was dead. A grandfather like me. And the shadow that he became, because of Compound 27. Because of Charles._

A dagger pricked her heart; she wasn't certain of how she should feel. Terror, mixed with pity and sorrow, made her nauseous. Terror because the shadow that had been looming over her shoulder for weeks had solidified at last; pity because she, too, had fallen into a similar hell; sorrow because the family she had finally found was destroying itself. Her cousin had created the monster in her grandfather as surely as she had created the endless hate for her within Wallace.

_Oh, Wallace. I have tried so hard to keep you out of my mind. _She bit her lip until blood oozed between her teeth. She pressed her fingers into her breastbone, trying to dig out the sharp pang biting her there. _All my doing. All that pain that I have caused us both over all these years. I regret it, regret what I did to you, forcing you to love me. I don't regret why I did it, just how. If only I had taken time to find some other way, neither of us would have suffered the way we have._

(break)(break)

Bart pulled on the last glove and secured it by punching that palm with his other fist.

_Well, that could've gone better. Wally won't talk about her at all._

The face mask was snug against the bridge of his nose as he fastened it around his flyaway hair. One more adjustment of his boots was needed before embarking on his little field trip. He reviewed the process again.

_Wally's gonna kill me if he finds out I used the cosmic treadmill for this. But I gotta know what happened between them. What really happened. I just hope I'm able to get this up to speed alone._

One foot on the cosmic treadmill began the system warmup. The other foot committed him. He punched in the coordinates that he'd had to guess at from logs kept by Nightwing – logs of exactly when his version of the Titans got off the ground.

_Might be a few days early or late, but I've got time to kill. And gotta set the place – our tower didn't exist then – let's go to Blue Valley –_

Step, step, step, step, faster, faster, faster, his feet a crimson blur beneath him, and then the world a blur around him . . .

(break)(break)

Raven touched her injured lip.

_I never could tell you the truth. I had to let you believe that my desperation overrode my principles. In reality, the betrayal of someone you loved had left you in despair. I had to give you hope, I had to let you believe you loved me so that you would have the will to live. But I could not tell you that, or the hope would have been gone. So I let you believe it was to get you on my team. I had to let you believe what you believed, because the truth would have destroyed you. And I could not let that happen._

She rocked back and forth, guarding that still, still form. _I couldn't tell you . . . I couldn't tell you that I really did love you. Whenever I turned away from you, every cell of my body cried out for you, screamed out for me to stay. When I walked away and told you to go back to Blue Valley, inside I wanted nothing more than to curl up next to you and breathe you in. To just bury my face in your arms and let you love me. _

_And when I was finally free, it was too late. Too late to repair the rift between us. Too much steel in our words to overcome. Too late for loving._

Hard and heavy beat her pulse; she clutched her chest as she felt the pain of the memory.

_You were the first person to ever really care for me. Even if I did trick you into it. You were the first person to love me. When I had nowhere else to go, you took my hand and showed me this world. At least, you tried. And when you left the team, I fell apart. I lost my strength. I went from having almost nothing to having less than nothing._

_What I did burned both ways, did it not? _

_I did it because – because I loved you first. I did it because your life was too precious to lose. _

_I couldn't let you die. The same way my cousin couldn't let Grandfather die._

She covered her eyes with a shaking hand.

_And look at what we've done._

(break)(break)

One crimson-and-gold streak was followed by a somewhat smaller crimson-and-gold blur.

_Angry, he's so angry. He just ran out of his room, ranting about some cheating girlfriend or other. Who's Nathalia?_

They were racing across the planet; Bart was barely able to keep up. _But no call from Robin yet. At least, their Robin, not ours. Maybe I went back too far._

Zipping, blurring, stone, water, grass, asphalt, zipping, blurring – _if he is saying anything, I can't hear it_. _But I can't get any closer to him. Can't let him see me._

The two colors racing ahead of him vibrated to a stop and formed a younger version of his cousin. Bart stopped too, ducking behind a rock to avoid being seen.

_Where are we?_

Bitter cold wind whipped through a uniform not designed for the elements, at least not elements like these. Snow poured from the gray-black sky above and mounded around his feet. A few feet beyond Wally was not more rock but more gray-black sky. He was shivering so hard that he was afraid his cousin would hear the rattling of his teeth. He definitely could not hear what Wally was moaning to himself about, but the misery on his face was louder than the wind.

The older speedster's knees gave out beneath him, and he was falling backwards into the deepening white.

_Wally, _he thought, _get up! You'll_ –_but of course he doesn't die. This is the past. But what –_

It took everything Bart had to stay put and watch. His fingers were going numb. Wally's body convulsed with shivers as the white built up around him and on him. His skin –_Oh, God, his skin, he's freezing – how did he –_

A lone gray figure appeared over the lip of the outcropping, one wrapped in layers so thick that no face could be seen. Gray shone in the white. The stranger struggled through the snow to the icing, dying man and knelt down beside him. Gloved hands swept snow off Wally's chest. The howling wind whipped strands of long ebony hair around the now-visible face –

Bart gasped into the wind.

_It's her._

(break)(break)

_I cannot change the past, my beloved friend. And I would not exchange freedom from this pain for your life. I would rather you hate me, and live._

She wiped at the drying blood on her lip where she had bitten herself. _But I will not weep for you any more. You have found your love, your Linda, and I am happy for it. Happy for you. _

A twitch moved the corner of her lips into a half-smile._ And I, I have found my love too. And it is real, not a trick, even to save a life. It has to be real. Even if we're separated now by those who cannot forget you._

_If only we could have peace between us. If only I could tell you the truth. But I cannot. I cannot fix _us.

She knelt beside the man she called Grandfather, a man buried beneath icy layers of fear. Slender fingers touched his breastbone through his shirt. _Maybe I can heal this instead_. _Maybe I can heal something. My empathic soul calls out to you, Grandfather. I cannot let you die, not like this. _

_I just found you._

She moved her hand to his head and laid her head on his chest. A soft thump-thump met her ear. _Maybe I can turn this curse from Sebastian into a blessing for him. He is unconscious, but maybe I can still speak to his soul. I can enter his dreams. I can eat his fear._

_And if this fails, and he dies, he could take me with him. If I fail – forgive me, Garfield._

The rhythmic breathing that induced her trances was already taking over, of its own volition.

_Take the next step. Shut the world out except for my breath and his heart. But first, beloved, know I love thee. I reach for life, for love, I reach for thee. Forgive me. I had to try, here, where the chase began._

Thump-thump.

Inhale.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Exhale.

A song of breath and pumping blood rang in her ears. _Grandfather, now I reach for you. You searched me out. Now I am here. Let me speak to your soul. Let me in._

A familiar pressure pushed against her mind as she dove into his. The emptiness of his unconscious brain surrounded her and lapped over her like dark water.

Thump-thump.

Inhale.

She dove in and felt the pressure increase as she sank deeper and deeper into his mind.

_Cold in here, so cold._

Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump.

Exhale.

(break)(break)

Two soundless voices echoed in Beast Boy's head.

_Arjh-no-ree._

_But first, beloved, know I love thee._

_Arjh-no-ree. Tell her._

_I reach for life, for love, I reach for thee._

"Raven?" he asked aloud, startling those around him at the ranger station. A green fist tightened around the tiny seashell hiding in his palm. He closed his eyes and thought as loudly as he could while he spoke to her. "Raven, where are you?"

_Forgive me. I had to try. Here, where the chase began._

"No, no, no, no," he screamed while he rushed out the door. He _felt_ the message. The door rattled shut behind him. It was a beacon. _I felt that. I didn't imagine that. _

_Where the chase began?_

_I know where she is._

(break)(break)

A/N:

I have mentioned in previous chapters the soap opera between our favorite empath and Wally. Wally is now married to reporter Linda Park. They just had twins!

The events that Kid Flash/Bart witnesses are detailed in "Legends of the DC Universe" #18, "Conflicting Emotions", written by Marv Wolfman. It was published in July, 1999. It is a sad little story. If you have already read that issue, then you know what he saw. If you haven't – well, you'll find out. Eventually. Nathalia was Wally's girlfriend at the time. Basically, she got upset with him because he was never there (she didn't know he was Kid Flash) and started dating his best friend behind his back.

Raven told Wally to go back to Blue Valley and forget she ever existed in TT #29 (Wolfman era). He told her he loved her, and she reminded him that she could not love him back.

The Cosmic Treadmill is this neat device that the Flash family uses to travel in time. It really does look like a treadmill. The user has to run fast enough on it to get it going. Bart has used it before, but he always had to have help on it from another member of the Flash family.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 20

Charlie spotted the younger man as he bolted out of the door and took to the skies as a pterodactyl. He could feel the anxiety and the excitement and the hope pouring out of him.

_That can only mean one thing._

He ripped keys from his belt loop. The Jeep roared to life and followed in his wake.

(break)(break)

Raven could sense him. He was there, in the space between heartbeat and breath.

There was no light, no warmth here. The eyes of her soul could see the cold cave surrounding her and pulling on the space in front of her, a long murky hallway of frozen stone. The taste of cold metal raked across her spirit. Its flavor curled into the empty places in her mind, leading her forward, deeper into the core of his spirit, showing her the way. And then she saw the wall.

She recognized this wall. A wall like this had imprisoned her own soul once. A wall that was deeply rooted and broad and cold. One that had separated her from every other living being, from any chance at wholeness. And the only weapon that demolished that wall was..._love_.

She focused on that which had destroyed her own barrier, which helped her pierce the sorrow that threatened to swallow her whole, as fear had swallowed this man.

_This is where healing begins. Where the barrier is found. I must get beyond this wall to truly speak to his soul._

She rested one trembling ethereal hand against the frozen barricade. She conjured images of her family, the one awaiting her in San Francisco—happy, loving images. In her tortured life there were very few, but those few were all the more powerful and precious because they were so rare. Her heart stirred as she sifted through the memories and gathered their strength in the space behind her soul's eyes.

_Garfield's concern for her, even before they had shared their hearts. His attempts to make her smile. His asking permission – in his own way – to kiss her. _A delighted blush swept across her body's face at the power of that memory. _His cradling her in her moment of weakness. And taming the ten-story stair luge with him and Bart. Dear Bart, who accepted her as part of the family without fear. His pleasant pestering only meant he was concerned for her. And Cassie, who forgave her social foibles and actually wanted to spend time with her. Cyborg – despite his momentary lapse of reason – and his fatherly heart guiding her, always there, giving his hand. The first time her eyes beheld Wallace, the first man her own age she had ever known –_

_Oh, Grandfather, _her soul sang to the wall, _Even the little I have is wealth compared to what you have had these past few years. You could not sense it, even the love that Charles still has for you. But here is my love. The love I can make you feel. The love that only I can force you to feel. Feel the love I have felt, feel my family's light. I give it to you..._

She released the brightness in the front of her mind and let it flow through her ghostly hand and into the wall. That curse, that curse of being able to manipulate the emotions of those around her, for the moment became a blessing. The ice around it began to melt and drip onto the misty rock floor below. The fear, the terror that he had gathered over the years dissipated in the face of that affectionate warmth. Faster and faster it melted, and the drops fell as rain in the dying gloom.

A brief, bloody flash emerged in the bluish-white, a nightmarish reflection of her four-eyed, red-faced self, that reached into her soul's heart and tried to drown it in the chill of the wall. It blinked two sets of eyes at her, mouthed silent words to her, the likeness reaching for her spirit's hand. Every fiber of her soul shuddered, wanted to recoil, wanted nothing more than to flee, but she held on, thinking _the wall still wants to exist, it tries to terrify me still, this is but an illusion_, and then the flash was gone, fading with the thawing wall.

Horrified but still undaunted, Raven continued her battle. She remembered the admiration in the photo of Thunder Horse and his grandchild and used it to fuel that fire. Cracks radiated out from her, cracks that ripped deep into the heart of the barrier. The soulscape trembled beneath her, and in the far distance, she heard the screams of his body echoing around the fire in the cave.

Her focus was so tight on the wall before her that her connection to her own body had grown numb. The only thing that existed for her now was the search for the bright soul on the other side. The wall trembled. It breathed. It seemed alive...and it wanted to continue to live, as if his soul wished to hide from this unfamiliar flavor flowing from her.

She pressed on, letting go of her own control, letting that warmth spread through her soul. Mental pictures flowered within her, faster, and faster, more love than she thought possible. _Kisses stolen by Garfield from her at every opportunity. Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Cyborg helping her to register for school. Freddie Mercury's blessed voice. Cheesecake. Monty Python giggles with his greenness laughing away next to her. Her own laughter. _A giggle of delight bubbled from her, giggles that deepened the chasms in the barrier.

_No love tricked into existence would have this kind of power,_ she realized.

_This is real._

_Oh, my beloved._

_It is real._

That thought pushed all that heat, all that desire forward in one smashing blow, and the ice shattered outward from her, shards of fear glistening in the bright day just beyond the gloom of the cave. They tumbled away into a blue, blue sky, evaporating in a newly formed soulscape in front of her.

The dazzling light invaded the cave, exposing the dimmest corners. Even the hardened stone began to dissolve in the new warmth. Raven ached to step into that light. One spirited foot ventured out, then another, and she searched the horizon of the soulscape for its owner.

Instead of an ocean of rock, she discovered a sea of tall grass, wave upon wave of rounded hills rising and falling into the distance. This strange, green desert stretched as far as her soul's eyes could see. She strode forward into the sunless brightness, mentally comparing it with the frosty empty space of her own soul, at least as she had last seen it. She had not visited her own for some time, and she wondered briefly what transformation was being wrought there since Garfield had entered her heart. Flashes of lightning darted in the distance as the soulscape continued to reform itself in the aftermath of fear's destruction.

And there he was, a kneeling figure in the tall grass, facing away from her, intently watching the lightning knit more grassland on the far horizon.

Her footsteps made no sound here. There was no whisper of movement as she walked to him through the high grass. She sensed no life here, other than their own. She saw him more clearly as she approached, though she was not prepared for what she saw.

The snow-white hair was now as shining black as her own, and it fell straight down past his shoulders. These shoulders were strong and smooth, instead of bent and wrinkled. His chest and arms were bare. One knee, wrapped in white buckskin pants, rested on the ground. He sat back on his ankle, elbow propped on the other knee. A relaxed alertness telegraphed outward from him.

As she approached him, he spoke to her without turning his face away from the sparks of lightning.

"So you did save me, Dawn Child. Just not in the way I expected." The words were strong but gentle, and his voice was deep and calm.

"Thunder Horse."

"Yes. I am the old man himself." His snapping black eyes turned to her. He tapped his bare chest. "But this is how I _like_ to see myself."

"As you were when you were young?" To Raven, the conversation felt so natural. His voice was clear and joyful, and her question to him came easily, as if she had known him all her life. He was so open to her, and none of his feelings were hidden. She felt an instant connection with this spirit, one much deeper than the one with Charles. A kindred spirit was this one, who had also known the darkness and craved the light.

"No," he replied with a broad grin. "I wasn't nearly this handsome. I never lived in a lodge. I never wore these." His hand tapped his leggings. "I never got the chance. Always wanted to, though. I always wanted to see the buffalo. But my school never allowed it. Then I went to France. For World War I, you know. Army fatigues and boots for this medicine man." He shook his head. "A war zone is no place for an empath. It is difficult to be a warrior when you can feel every blow against an enemy."

_Such a gentle mind is this_, she thought.

She returned his smile, surprised at how easily it came to her. "I know. I am the veteran of a few wars myself...Grandfather."

"It must feel strange for you to call this young buck that, Dawn Child. Come, sit with me a moment." He pointed to the new hills rolling away from them. "Let us watch what you have set free to grow."

She sat in the grass, still not feeling it scratching against her, still not feeling the breeze that was stirring Thunder Horse's hair.

"How do you know so much about me? My names—"

"I have always spent time at Charlie's when he wasn't there. And I've been able to stay hidden from him – he cannot read past energies the way you and I can. I've always tried to stay close to him. That's one reason why my hiding place was so close to him."

"Then you've read my letters to him."

"Yes, and some of his to you. Light draws out those who crave it, Dawn Child. And you just gave me a large dose of it. Charlie is right. You are a creature of love. Maybe, someday, you'll realize that."

She blinked slowly, letting the words sink in.

"Can you return with me now? Can you go back to Charles?" she asked.

He lowered his head into the soundless wind. He cocked his ear towards the distant lightning, as if it were broadcasting the changes brewing within him. "You have set my soul free from the chains of fear, child. But the damage to my mind from the drug is still there. It is beyond even your great gifts, I am afraid. The hurts go too deep. And my crimes. My crimes are many." He shook his head, and his bright cheerfulness from a moment before dimmed. "My crimes are not gone, even if I am free. No, Raven. I would only bring more horror to my Charlie. There can be no rest for me until I have atoned for what I have done."

Her ghostly hand reached for his. The grief in his voice shook her heart. _I understand this pain all too well._

"You are not the only one to blame for what has happened, Thunder Horse...the drug..."

"Yes, the drug." He lowered his other knee and sat on the ground next to her. "He gave me the drug, yes. But every time I hungered, it was my finger that pulled the trigger. Not his. We all have our deeds that we must atone for. Myself. Charles. Even you. I see into your soul now, and see that you have your own to deal with."

"Charles has his own ideas about who is to blame. For just about everything."

"Coyote?" He exhaled a deep sigh. "Since I told him those stories as a child, he has hunted for Coyote. Even as an adult, even as a doctor, he always wanted someone to blame for all the evils that he saw." The wind played in his dark hair. "Let me tell you about Coyote. He is not a separate being. He is deep within us, a part of us."

"Like my father is deep within me."

"You will see. Coyote is the trickster. He tricked Charlie into thinking he could save me with a drug. He fooled you into thinking you could trick your friend, Wallace, into living, so long ago. Do you see what I say? Coyote is the desire to fix things the easy way, without working through them. Coyote is the easy road. Even out of the good that Coyote tries to do, some evil must come, on that easy road."

He plucked a long blade of grass from the prairie floor and rolled it between his fingers.

"My grandson meant well. And he is wise, in many ways. But no one is all-wise or all-knowing. He only wanted me to live. So he gave me the white man's medicine. But it was not medicine. It was a poison. It was Coyote. It tricked him and betrayed me, twisted me into the shell I became. It covered my senses, cut me off from the world, until only fear could get through."

His young face darkened, and his eyes narrowed.

"And Coyote still hungers. He is not done with us. You must go back to that place, Dawn Child, that place where I held you prisoner. You must see what I have done there, and you must deal with it. Deal with my Coyote, even though it will tear your heart apart. Do that, and keep my Coyote from eating us all."

Her shoulders lifted up as she stared hard at him. "What will I find there?"

"The tissue samples that we stole. We took them for CADMUS. We had a deal. I told you before, if I could not have you with me one way, I would have you another. They wanted the samples. My price was not money, but a copy of you. You must stop them before they complete their side of the bargain."

Her eyes grew wide as she thought of what a clone of herself might mean.

He studied her silent face. "And now I know how I can pay my own debt. I sense the pain hiding deep in you. I remember my own pain, from so long ago. It is the poison. Every time you run, or jump, or feel great joy, it will awaken the pain you have taken from others. That pain will keep growing, child," Thunder Horse said. He reached his hand out to her. "It will grow like a cancer. It will rise and fall in you like the waxing and waning of the moon. Fire on your skin. The burns, the itching, will eat into your mind until you can't see anything but the pain. It will crawl over you until you cannot sleep, cannot think, cannot breathe, until all you can do is pray for death because that is the only thing that will take away the pain. Pain that lives in my body even now. It nearly destroyed me, once. Made my Charlie think I was dead. But I lived, and I escaped my burial platform. I searched out that which I could feed upon, creating fear where I could not find it. But I am weary, child. Weary of causing fear and death where I once was a giver of medicine, like you. I must not allow this poison to continue to corrupt you, too. Charlie must destroy this drug. Tell him, child. Tell him to never use it again."

She took his hand between her own; torrents of sorrow were pouring through him, and she could not bear it. "Then let me heal you. Let me take those pains, that hunger –"

"No! No, little one. Oh, child, do you not hear what I say? I would not have you become as me. You are dying _now_, but there is a choice. There is only death for me. But for you, for you, I choose life. Out of the darkness of my death comes new light for you. Sometimes out of evil, good can come. And that, child, that is Coyote too."

He grabbed her wrists, both in his spirit form and in his real form. "The only mercy you can give me now is to take me down—"

Her words quivered in a panic, and she squirmed in his grasp. "No, Grandfather, I cannot kill—"

"Within you lies the weapon, the only one to destroy me. Give me that pain, that pain that will take you if it continues in you. I cannot stop the change the drug has started in you, but I can take the pain."

"The change? I don't –"

"There is no time." Scars slashed the skin of his high cheekbones as she felt his healing work its way into her deepest self. His eyes searched hers, as if he could see all the way back to her body. "You have stopped breathing, child. Your body is dying. The effort of your journey is killing you. Breathe." Thin lines of blood trickled down the sides of his weathered face. "Let your life be my death-song."

She bled pain into him while the pulsing light of the soulscape began to fade.

"Go back to yourself. You cannot come with me."

Her answer screamed out of her. "No, no, Grandfather, you cannot—"

"I can. I will. I am." His soul pushed at hers, forcing it back from the depths of his own. The scars widened and deepened across his face, his chest and his arms. Every pain this shell had known, from the first gash she had taken from Garfield's side to the last broken bone she had healed, poured out of her and into his soul. His wrists and legs bent at awkward angles; his ribs were caving in. The dam of anguish in her flooded over him, and the instant release of what had taken many battles to build was ripping him apart.

(break)(break)

Gar saw the dim glow of fire spilling out of the mouth of the cave. The beastly part of his brain fairly glowed back with alarm – the alarm telegraphed to dogs and horses just before the ground begins to shake. Something strange, something weak, about the canyon wall before him forced him to the desert floor, where he took on the form of a mustang to better read that message, a message powerful enough to make him hesitate to pull Raven out of that cave. Charlie's Jeep groaned up beside him, strained by the speed.

The empath leaped out of the car. "There's some kind of energy transfer going on up there," he reported. "You feel it, too?" He pointed to the canyon wall. "This part of the canyon is not completely stable. I do not know what is happening up there, but if it's what I think it is, that entire column is going to collapse."

A spine-wrenching shriek escaped the light above them and ricocheted down the valley.

"Stay here," a falcon ordered as Beast Boy shot himself at the distant blaze.

(break)(break)

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump

"Breathe," Thunder Horse moaned in a hoarse whisper. "Breathe again."

She was rising against her will, the pressure in her skull decreasing. His raging pulse hushed.

"Live again. Walk with the Great Spirit, little one."

_No, no_, her soul shrieked, _no, I could love this man...my family..._

Inhale

Thump-thump-thump-thump

Exhale

He chanted his last words to her, each one fainter than the one before: "I chose this cave as my hiding-place for a reason. It binds us together, you and I. The words on the wall tell your story. They describe the wheel of your life turning. I knew someday that I might find you and bring you here."

She felt that letting-go, his soul's hands releasing her one finger at a time, the warmth replaced by a rushing chill. The disappearance that comes with death that she had felt from so many filled the space between them. That familiar presence-turning-absence pushed them apart.

"I have turned their meaning over in my mind again and again. And she has told me about you. She, the other part of you. She who told me you could save me. She sang to me about the one question you have always asked of yourself. Why. Why you are what you are. Why the fact of your existence makes you suffer so. I can tell you in part, but not all, granddaughter. Your spirit burns with the light of a sun, to drive out darkness. You are not a helpless slave to fate. Your war with the red devil is no accident, my dear _Arjh-no-ree._"

"It was your choice."

(break)(break)

Thunder Horse's body was howling. She was screeching, feeling each agony as it fled out of her and washed into him. Heat rose from their bodies as the pain took on a form and whipped through the cave. Sweating rocks began to shake around them.

Thump-thump-thump-inhale-thump-thump-exhale—thump-inhale-thump-exhale-thump-inhale.

Exhale

Inhale

Her screams were hoarse now, calmer from loss of energy rather than from loss of terror. Vocal cords chafed raw in her throat as the chorus of their howls dwindled, and only her guttural solo scraped against the vibrating stones surrounding them.

Hands around her wrists burned into her skin. Other hands drug her away, and contact was severed as her mind broke the surface of consciousness.

"Raven, wake up!"

_He is here._

One darkness gave way to another darkness, one sprinkled with stars. Cold smokeless air washed over her face as he lifted her out of the trembling cave. A muscular neck supported her face. Clouds of worry and relief surrounded them. The entire column of rock beneath them was giving way, and he was stumbling as the ground swayed.

Green man shifted into jade pterodactyl; he grasped her in his talons as he glided away from the landslide and found the earth once more. Rumbles louder than nearby claps of thunder tore through the air, and rock and dust and sand tumbled end over end in the empty void that had once been a cave. The etchings and scratchings of color and pain on its walls rent into countless indecipherable bits as they were crushed in the deafening collapse of the canyon wall. The maimed body of Thunder Horse was hidden deep in the sandstone rubble.

Charlie was waiting. He took her from Gar as he shifted back to human form. She was a limp rag doll in his arms.

"Think she's in shock?" Gar asked.

Charlie gestured with his head. "Get the blanket out of the back."

Beast Boy sprinted to the back of the Jeep.

"Are you all right?" her cousin asked her.

Her head swayed against his shoulder. Her words slurred their way out of her. "He came after me. Thunder Horse. But I—I stayed. To try to help him. It was our grandfather, he—"

"I know, child. We figured it out before we found you."

Her voice was small and choked. "He is gone. Thunder Horse is dead, Charles. He didn't—didn't hurt me." Each word sliced the inside of her throat. She croaked, "He took it from me, took my pains. He saved me. It killed him. Horribly. I couldn't – I couldn't stop--"

He lowered her feet to the ground. "I don't think there is anything you could have done, little sister." He brushed a loose hair away from her eyes. A sad relief radiated from her cousin. "This was not your doing."

Something was missing inside of her. The weight of pain on her shoulders was lifted, and she felt so light that she thought she would drift off the dusty desert floor.

_It's gone. For the first time in my life, I feel no pain. It's gone. I don't know how to be._

Garfield's hand grasped her shoulder from behind.

"You—you—beautiful—stupid—zany—spunky—lunatic!" he sputtered as he spun her around to face him. "Don't scare me like that again." He grasped her other shoulder and began to shake her. "You're always pulling stunts like this. You don't do anything like that without backup again. Do you hear me? You mean too much to me—too much--"

Her lips parted to answer him, but no words could escape the tight muscles of her throat.

Drawing her close, he held her against him tightly and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She slipped her arms underneath his and gripped him even more tightly. She craned her head up to rest her cheek against his. The gleam of young Red Cloud's new star – my star, he said -- reflected in her moist eyes.

"You're okay, baby, you're okay," he mumbled against her cheek. "Oh, God, I've found you. I found you. And you're okay." He gripped her head and kissed her fiercely all over her face, making her heart race with his anxious touch. "I found you." Relief, anger, affection, frustration and exhaustion all mixed together to create a whirlwind of confusion in her brain, and the furry chaotic tastes of them coated her mouth. "I found you," he repeated, over and over.

_Too much, this is too much,_ her inner voice shouted. Those last haunting tendrils of her grandfather's spirit steamed off of her in an invisible vapor. Hot salty tears stung her lips. _You're here – he's gone...I was dying – one more bright light and one more shadow gone...my choice, how could this be my choice...he's seen another part of me but how...but you are here...how are you here..._

The sudden absence of pain confused her muscles and her joints and her bones; even the withdrawal of that agony was a deep shock to her system. Her words were still frozen inside of her, buried in her aching throat, and all she could do was bury her head into him and weep.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

A beautiful illustration for this chapter was done by SparkyX over on deviantArt. The link to it is in my profile. Please go take a look!

Coyote – Chapter 21

Bart shook his head as he slowed the treadmill to a stop at a point just moments after he had left.

_I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. I can't believe what I just saw ..._

_Boy, she looked different back then. She looked so weird with long hair._

He stepped down off the treadmill and stared at it. _She erased his memory of the whole thing. Should I tell Wally what really happened? Would it make a difference?_

_Would it break the spell? _

Should_ it break the spell?_

_I don't know what to do now. I know the facts._

_I just don't know what to do with them._

(break)(break)

Charlie drove them back to the ranch in silence. Gar held Raven next to him in the back seat; exhaustion rolled off her like sweat. She fell asleep with her cheek resting against his shoulder during the long, long drive. He was trying to hold the boiling anger in him down to a low-grade annoyance. Anger would not help her current condition.

The older man showed Gar the way to her room; the green one managed to carry her to the bed without waking her. He lowered her to the mattress as Charlie watched from the door.

He walked back to Charlie and said, "We'll talk about all this in the morning." He began to close the door.

"I think you should--"

Charlie started to follow him, but Gar firmly pushed his shoulder out of the room.

"You're not separating us. Not tonight."

Charlie returned his determined gaze. The growling steel in the young man's voice was meant to tell him that this was one argument that he just wasn't going to win.

"All right. All right," he replied, backing down the hallway into the darkness.

(break)(break)

Gar closed the world away from them when he shut the door. He stripped off his jacket as he crossed the room to the little bed where she was already wrapped in a deep sleep.

_Good_, he thought. _Rest is what she needs. We can talk about this whole deal later. _He draped the jacket across the back of a chair. _If I think about it now, I'll just wake her up_.

He wrapped his fingers around her ankle and eased one foot out of a boot, then the other. He rested his palm against the crook between her foot and her shin and stroked her ankle with the gentlest of touches. She settled more snugly into the bed. He smiled at her; he smiled for the first time in weeks. He stepped out of his own shoes and tiptoed around her, wincing every time the ancient floor creaked. He made sure she was still asleep before he began pulling off his jeans and the costume underneath that felt more like a second skin. The thin sheen of sweat on his shoulders and thighs nearly inhaled the cool air of the room.

Once freed of his uniform, he slipped back into his jeans and flicked off the lone lamp in the room. The only light left was that of the half moon falling through the window. Tugging the quilt at the foot of the bed over them both, he crawled in beside her. He pulled her close to him; her back nestled into his chest, and his legs curled into hers. She stirred in the movement of his arms.

"Shhhh..." he whispered. "Sleep. I'm taking care of you tonight."

_Think sleepy thoughts, _he told himself. _Help her to rest_. His nose nuzzled against the lobe of her ear. The worn softness of the quilt and the coarse texture of her blouse cradled his bare chest as he breathed in her scent. Instead of mingling with rosemary this time, it mixed with smoke and fading fear. But still it surrounded him and warmed him. Moonlight washed over her; white light and shadows winked at him from her face. Her back and legs relaxed as she grunted contentedly. He smiled again. _I'm not sure what she's gonna say in the morning about the sleeping arrangements, but the bed is too small for her to not wake up with yours truly wrapped around her. _

Quiet sounds of the night hummed in the corners of the aging house and trickled into his ears: the tic-toc-tic-toc of a clock, the click of the refrigerator compressor, the neighing of the horses in the stable, the sleepy beat of her heart. Weary eyelids lowered as the rhythm of the darkness lulled him to sleep.

_I know this is real, Vic. I know it. This feels right. _

_They won't separate us, Raven. Not now. Not again. Not ever._

(break)(break)

_I must be dreaming again._

Gentle breath on the back of her neck stirred her from a deep sleep. That familiar tangy sweet and sour flavor mixed with a strong waft of wet fur invaded her senses. A glowing warmth enveloped her in that drowsy place between waking and sleeping. Pre-dawn light filtered in through the window and tickled her eyelashes. The warm and slightly snoring lump holding her told her that this was no dream.

She licked her lips. _A taste of honey. Oh, my, what is he dreaming of?_ Even though he was pressed against her, his dreams remained locked in his head. That curious flavor was intimately and permanently tied to their first deep revealing kiss, and she enjoyed feeling it once more. How long ago was that? It felt like a lifetime ago.

_It's time to rediscover that taste for real. _Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the giggle bubbling out of that naughty thought.

_But I shouldn't be here. Not like this._ A furrow plowed across her forehead at that thought_. That's your teachers talking, there, not you_, she snapped at herself. _You are doing no wrong. Just be here. Just feel his warmth. Just feel it. He found you. He stayed with _you

_You know you want his heat_, that aggressive part of her nature purred into her mind. _You fear it -- fear that deep, deep touch -- but that's your mother's fear. Not yours. It protected you before -- like from that creep Forrester. This man is no creep. So get over it._

Memories of the night before chased each other around her skull. The terror of the Black Rose. The sacrifice of Thunder Horse. The force that demolished his wall.

_It is real._

Slowly, carefully, she rolled her body over to face him. His face, half-buried in their shared pillow, twitched at the movement. She allowed her eyes to drift over that face, over those bare shoulders -- _ooooh, Azar, those shoulders_ -- and sighed with deep contentment. She inched her face even closer to his and breathed in his scent, even stronger now for his time searching for her in the heat. _How peaceful this is. I never knew how...soothing... this would be. I never knew. I never knew. For once in my life, I have not awakened alone._

(break)(break)

The tower sounded strange to Beast Boy this morning. Tic-toc-tic-toc, soft whinnies – _Since when did we keep horses on the island?_

One heavy eyelid struggled open and looked straight into a violet ocean. His muscles jerked in unison. _Oh. I'm not _on_ the island._

The ocean receded and resolved into two glittering eyes.

"Good morning, Garfield," they said in a husky whisper.

He closed the one eye, rubbed it, then opened them both. "Uh, mornin' darlin', I, um, I ..."

"Did you sleep well?"

They were speaking in those soft, nervous whispers that people speak in when they are terrified of being overheard. Their words were barely audible.

He grunted. "Like the dead. You? Did you sleep okay after all that--"

"Very well. Very well indeed. Because I am so overjoyed to see you." She paused for a few deep breaths. "And because it is the first time I have had...company...while I've slept."

"Look, I'm sorry, I just couldn't – couldn't leave you – God, how I missed you --"

"Shhhh .. . " she began as her fingertips rested on his chin. "I rather enjoyed waking up with – with you holding me. It made me feel – it was wonderful. Especially since we have been apart for so long." Every few syllables, her voice faded out completely, as if the screams from the night before were still tearing holes in her larynx.

"So . . .uh . . . we just . . . uh--"

"Slept together? Only in the most literal sense, beloved. We are still dressed." She stroked his bare shoulder with the back of her hand. Her touch was so light that he barely felt it. "Well, mostly dressed."

"And dangerously close," he replied with a wink. "Which means, I guess, there's something we really need to talk about. I guess this is as good a time as any." He cleared his throat and pursed his lips.

"Yes?"

"Uh-huh." He cleared his throat again and scratched his ear. _Her eyes look so innocent. _"Yeah. Uh. Us. And. Sex. Uh. Yeah." He scratched his other ear. _We don't need to talk about Cyborg. Not Thunder Horse. Not the BRU._ _Us._

She closed her eyes. The smallest finger of the hand against his chest began to tremble. "That is a very difficult...topic...for me."

He let his index finger trace the knuckles on her nervous digit as he tried to still its shaking. "Yeah, I know, but, uh, don't you think we need to talk about it? Sometime?"

Those violet eyes reappeared. "It will not be easy—"

"We're in the same boat as far as that goes, I think. I guess I can, uh, tell my, uh, story first? Would that make it easier?"

"It would. Just tell me what you are thinking. I need to hear the words."

"Okay. Okay. I think it's something we really need to talk about. Given who we both are, y'know, we need to be more careful than most people. You think?"

Raven nodded.

"But I know that I—I know I want to be with you. That way. In the worst way." The confession poured out of him, one word tripping over another. He laughed with a nervous twitch. "I think I'm running up the tower's water bill with all the cold showers I'm taking lately."

"Cold showers?" She shook her head, reaching to the back of her neck to release her braid. "I must confess, I am very ignorant of . . . many things. I have read about the...basics...but I am not... I suppose my teachers believed I would never use such knowledge."

He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Well, then, do I have an earful for you! Later, I mean. Until then, we need to talk about _us_." He paused and took a deep breath. His fingers walked through her hair and began freeing tight strands from the remnants of that braid. "A few things – uh – worry me about it. First, there's what I've got. What I carry. The sakutia."

"Your parents cured you, yes? That cure gave you your powers."

"They cured me, sure. But I still carry it. I know I can't give it to anyone by kissing them, but Dad didn't have time to figure out if I could transmit it in...in that way."

"He was probably relieved that you survived it at all," she replied. She took his hand in hers and intertwined their fingers. "If it is any comfort to you, it is very possible that I would not contract it any case. Arella...my mother told me that my soul-self protects me from disease. So far, she has been correct."

"Ohhhhh...to find out," he moaned with a grin. He was trembling next to her. He swallowed before he found his voice again. "And that's another thing. My DNA...the animals. You know how they make me hear sharply, sense things..."

"I know."

"They do other things, too. They make me feel very _animal_ things." He looked down at the quilt and studied the curves of her shape beneath it. Suddenly, the awareness of exactly how close their bodies were screamed up his spine. He looked away. "I guess I'm afraid that if I get to a certain point, I--I won't be able to stop myself. And I don't want to hurt you. Not for the world. Not for anything at all." He returned his gaze to her.

"I have never felt you this serious before."

"I've never _been_ this serious before. Ever."

"I know you would not hurt me. I trust you. Even though I am afraid. About touch. It...it's almost instinctive. Like it's been programmed into me."

"Tell me more. Talk to me." He pulled their entangled hands closer to his chest.

She nodded. "If I can find the words. To be honest, I have always been terrified of it. Of ... the act of love. When I was growing up, they only told me enough to remind me about how I came to be. And enough for me to avoid it, even though I was not supposed to be around people. I was a product of rape, they said, and they never, ever let me forget it."

He cringed as he touched her face. "How cruel could they get?" he asked. "Were they always bringing it up?"

"Every day," she replied with a bitter edge in her shaking voice.

"Bastards. No wonder. No wonder you are so scared." He cradled her neck in his hands and pulled her forehead to his. "No wonder."

The shaking in her voice grew stronger. "And there is someone out there that wants to repeat history. Brother Blood—"

"Hey, hey, you're okay," he whispered. He held her head still against his own, their foreheads still touching. "I'm not gonna let that happen, all right? I won't let him hurt you. What Trigon did to Arella. What that psycho wants to do to you – that's not love. That's _criminal_. That's not love." He brushed his lips against her cheek. "_This_ is. Talking about it is. Deciding together is. Okay?"

Several deep breaths passed through her before she answered. "Yes. You are right. I know you are. But I think – I think with you – I will be fine. I do." She paused. "But there is one other thing."

"I think I know where you're going. Babies?"

"Indeed. Blood created this shell for that purpose. Would a child of mine possess the same darkness that haunts me? I would not force what I have endured on anyone."

"Or a child of mine?" he countered. "Or of the two of us combined? Who knows what that kid would be in for from the rest of the world? Hard to tell. Another reason for us to be more careful than most people with this, I guess. Although, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure I can. Have kids. Part of my power rests in the instability of my DNA, and I'm not sure what that does to my...er...the reproductive part of me. I've never really had that checked out. You know how I hate doctors. But I can't assume one way or the other. Not with what we could have at stake."

"And I am not entirely settled in this new body that I have, either. And I am still getting to know how I feel. About everything. My personality. I feel it _changing_. Maybe the Compound 27. Maybe I am just really becoming me. So much I need to know about myself before I can really give myself. I need to know who I am giving to you."

"_And _know what you're getting yourself into. If we wait, I want it to be because it's the right thing to do – not because we're afraid of each other. So, I guess I repeat an earlier question, where do we go from here?"

She tapped her lips with her fingers. She was quiet for a long time. He could almost hear wheels turning in her brain. "A thought. We both have questions that we need answers before we proceed – proceed in that direction. Perhaps we can revisit the question of _when_ then? When we've answered these questions? It's not a matter of _no_, but a matter of _later_?"

He sighed and propped his cheek up with his fist. "Well, I've waited a couple of decades now. I can wait a little longer."

She raised her eyebrows at him, but said nothing. Her eyes said it all.

"Don't say a _word_ to Cyborg."

The lips he had been staring at kissed the corner of his mouth. "Your secret is safe with me. It has been for this long."

"Nothing much gets past you, does it?"

He held her head still as she began to pull away. "I trust _you._" His eyes stole a quick glance at the bedroom door. "Now, how 'bout some B.B. love? Just a _little_ taste. To show you that you don't have to be afraid?"

(break)(break)

Her lips pursed tightly at the question. A deep hunger for touch rattled in the back of her mind. _I can try. Try to not be afraid. _With a hard swallow, she nodded, letting him roll her right shoulder back down to the bed. "You're safe," he whispered. And she could feel him thinking, _safe, safe_ at her. His fingers lightly traced the lines on her throat.

"And no reflection this time. Don't work. This is for _you_."

The touch was teasing, it was so light, but still her skin drank in every contact – she felt every cell of his skin as he brushed his fingers around to the back of her head. He leaned his face closer to hers as that hand wandered away from her neck. She shivered as the side of his hand barely brushed the peak of her breast on its journey to her side; his own slight tremors answered her shivers. The shivers led to a stiffening in her limbs -- it felt so good but so unfamiliar that her mind could not process the sensation comfortably.

"So soft," he drawled, "and so warm. Close your eyes and trust me. Let yourself feel."

His smallest finger traced a line through her blouse, from her rib cage down to her hip, just inching its way as slowly as it could while still moving. His full hand rested on that hip as his mouth took in her upper lip and explored it with an eager tongue.

A half-gasp, half-moan began to rumble deep in her chest as the very heat of him began to swirl inside her brain. Her eyes blinked once, twice, and finally settled closed. This was on a whole other level than that first passionate kiss they had shared weeks ago. This was one more line crossed; not the last line, but one crossed nonetheless. One by one, her knotted muscles untied themselves with the loving of his mouth; she was melting as she merged with the crossing of that line and stopped any pretense at resistance. The taste of his honey-sweet lust transformed from startling to pleasant in a few heartbeats.

Wiry green muscles shifted as he lowered one shoulder onto hers; she felt the corner of his body pushing her down into the mattress and pressing her breast to one side through her shirt. One slender hand crept up to stroke those shoulders, those strong shoulders that made her mind whirl every time she looked at them. With a strong inhalation, she breathed in that scent that was so uniquely his, that scent that had haunted her for weeks. She felt her own breath rushing past their faces as she let it escape her lungs, and she could hear her own heart beating inside of her ears.

His hand and his mouth moved like a smooth machine: the hand slid back up her side, touching each rib through her blouse as it went, while his mouth traveled from hers down her jaw line to her throat. His hand came to rest behind her ear, and his fingers danced in strands of her hair.

_My – my throat – it tickles—it – my hair – so soothing his fingers in my hair – breath on my neck – his taste – smell – don't –don't stop – so – so warm --_

Almost on instinct, her head tilted back into the pillow, allowing him further access to her tender skin. As if pulled by a string, the leg opposite him curled closer to her, knee bent, toes pressing into the sheets. Eager happiness rushed from him as he felt that yielding. _Safe, safe,_ she heard, unsure if he were saying it or thinking it. His nose traced random patterns up and down the sides of her neck; the tip of his tongue retraced the paths in a moist dotted line. His breath came in ragged spurts, and she sensed his spirit straining as he convinced himself to not stray past her collarbone.

_Safe, protected_, that phantom whisper said again. _Trust me._ The words soaked into her. _No reflection. Hold on to the feeling. Feel it._

_I do._ The thought crawled out of her as it became more difficult to string words together. That field of green behind her eyes that glowed whenever he touched her was burning brightly now, urging her to release it. But she held it back, stopping the reflection of his feelings back at him. _Never...felt...this...I do...feel..._

She felt that pulling again, that pulling she had felt that first time, like strings in secret places pulling her towards him. That pulling loosened something there, made some part feel so empty, made that something call out softly to be filled with him. A gentle "ooh" eased its way out of her despite herself, and her thoughts just stopped. With gears frozen in place, those wheels just stopped turning. Language and thinking were almost beyond her reach now as he delicately nipped at the hollow of her throat. There was no internal conversation any more – just the sensation of movement and pressure.

"We're about to get noisy," he whispered. With one last flick of his lips against the meeting of her neck and her shoulder, he pulled away and rolled off of her. She felt her body scream "no" at the sudden withdrawal of the cozy heat and the protective pressure on her body.

"Like that, to begin with," he almost growled. He looked away for half a second, then looked back with an extreme tenderness that replaced the fading lust. "Rrrrruf. Except _way_ more intense."

He wormed one arm underneath her back and pulled her to him. She pillowed her head on his chest, her eyes nearly glued open as she began to recover from that intense touch of his.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, speechless for the moment. She could feel his wanting, his wanting to get past that blouse and to her skin; she also could feel her wanting him there even as she shivered at the thought. And she could feel him damming back the desire, saving it for later, protecting her, protecting them both. The gears in her brain began to thaw as conscious thought began to flow again. _Just breathe. Just breathe, _she thought. _So...so..._ No words came. But her brain was buzzing happily to itself with that field of green still trapped there behind her eyes, like it did when she overindulged in chocolate. She ran her fingers through the lawn of hair on his chest. _But I wasn't afraid –I didn't feel trapped – I thought I would -- I wasn't – I was wanting it. And wanted._

_And I'm wanted._

"And loved," he added to that thought, giving her a firm squeeze around her shoulders. "And loved."

He answered her light gasp: "I can hear you if you think loud enough."

"Yes," she replied, settling her cheek into his shoulder. Her hands were shaking in the wake of that close moment. "Y-Yes, I believe you can. And...every time you...talked about your...skills... you weren't...exaggerating."

He chuckled as he gave her another squeeze and buried his lips into her hair. "I never lie about that, darlin'. When you only let yourself get to a certain point, you try to make gettin' to that point as grand as possible. For both parties."

They were both gasping for air as quietly as they could, suddenly aware again that they were not alone in the house. The distant smell of frying food mingled with his warm, soggy-canine scent. She just let herself breathe him in.

A soft knock came to the door. "Breakfast?" Karen's voice asked.

"We're on our way, Mrs. Thunder Horse," Gar called out. He rubbed the top of her shoulder. "C'mon, sweets, before they think we're doing more than just _talking_ about it."


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.

Coyote – Chapter 22

Charlie sipped his coffee and flicked his eyes from one young face to the other.

"So, young man, what are your intentions with my cousin, now that you are not trying to have me for dinner?" But he said it with a smile.

"That," Gar replied as he slipped his arm around her shoulders, "is entirely up to her. Raven," he turned to her, "I need to call Vic. He's going to throw a rod worrying about us. You okay?"

She nodded and watched him amble from the kitchen.

Her cousin stared into his mug with a furrowed brow. "I guess it would be useless to lecture you about wandering off on your own. I think your Mr. Logan beat me to it. But I do want to thank you for...for doing what you did for Thunder Horse. For helping him find some peace at last. For dealing with Coyote...my Coyote."

She rested her hand on his wrist. "Charles, none of us expected it to be him. But even though I was afraid, I am...not happy, exactly, but honored, to have met this man. He was not what I had anticipated, not at all."

"How was he?"

"Charming. For a wise man, he was...charming. I only wish I had been able to stay a little longer. But he saved me, I think, as much as I could have saved him. I see now why you honor him so."

"Tell me. Tell me everything."

(break)(break)

Gar slipped into the great room to find a quiet spot. In the background, he could hear the calm rising and falling of Raven's voice as she explained the previous night's events to her cousin.

His burning anger towards Vic had since boiled down to irritation. _Time to call home,_ he thought.

"Gar?" Vic's voice sputtered across static.

"It's me, rust-bucket. I found her, and she's okay."

"Thank God," Vic replied. "That you're both all right. You were right, salad-head. We figured out it was her---"

"Grandfather. I was wrong. Close, but wrong."

The picture frames in the house began to rattle against the wall. Beast Boy grinned as that familiar high-pitched vibration rumbled through the house and Cyborg's signal picked up strength.

"But her grandfather—Thunder Horse –he's supposed to be—"

"He is now. Look, it's a long story. I'll tell you when I see you."

"Well, then, you can tell me now. Look out the window."

(break)(break)

A weak smile played across his lips. "Yes, the drug. I certainly can't let that same thing happen to _you_, little sister. I promise. No more Compound 27."

Karen gave her a wink. _And I'll see to that_, the wink seemed to say.

"We'll call in some earth-moving equipment today, see if we can recover his remains. So I can take proper care of him." Charlie listened to the whining of jet engines overhead. He paused for a moment. "Have you given any thought to my offer? To stay?"

(break)(break)

Shining arms gathered the petite empath into a rib-crushing embrace, nearly lifting her into orbit.

"I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry," he muttered into her shoulder. "I've royally screwed the pooch this time, witch." He gently lowered her to the ground. "The tower's too quiet without you, you little party animal. Are you okay? Are you really okay?"

She chuckled softly and rested one slender hand against his dark cheek. The images she had used to defeat her grandfather's wall still floated in her mind. "My Victor. My dear, dear Victor. You only did what you have always done – try to take care of me. You have always taken care of me." Her feet left the floor as she floated up to look him in the eyes. She removed her hand and kissed him on his cheek. "If I had the power to choose my own father, Victor, I would have chosen you."

He wrapped his arms around her again as she hovered in front of him. "Look, Raven, about you and Gar." He held her away from him so he could explain to those wide violet eyes. "I know you know why I did this, right? But I was wrong to second-guess you two. Love? I don't know if _anybody_ ever really knows when it's real. But you have the right to figure that out for yourself without me messing around with it. Can you forgive this rusty-brained pile of spare parts?"

"Aw, now, you two are gettin' all mushy on me," Gar's voice wound around her and between them. "Dr. Sommers'll get jealous!"

"Gar!" Cyborg yelped. "C'mere, greenie, you're next!"

And in moments, gleaming metal was chasing jade fur around the ranch house.

Raven gave Charlie the smile of a mother watching her twins wrestle. "Well, things are certainly back to normal, now."

(break)(break)

Beast Boy could hear Superboy and Bart bickering in the rear seats of the T-Jet as he settled the empath into the seat next to him.

"Jedi!" Connor said.

"Vulcan!" Bart replied.

Vic leaned over them from the next row of seats. "Rave, I've already contacted Robin and Cassie back at the tower. They're already looking into a return trip to the CADMUS lab. If your grandfather was right, we could be in one for an interesting ride." Vic jerked his head at the arguing boys. "They've been going on like that since last night."

"What are they arguing about, Victor?"

"Oh, it's just something silly, Rave. They're trying to figure out which fictional character type you are. Jedi or Vulcan, based on your powers. Yeesh." He wandered up the aisle to the cockpit. "Up front, Conner. You're learning some more of those controls today."

She could feel Bart's eyes boring into the back of her head. A strange new admiration curled out into the space between them. She made a mental note to discover the source of that feeling later.

She turned to Gar. "Jedi? Is that something from your old show?"

"I wish. You mean you've never seen _Star Wars_? I guess I'll have to add it to the list. They sure hated to see you go," Gar continued in a low voice to the head resting on his shoulder. Their soft conversation was punctuated by the debate behind them.

"Jedi! Mind tricks! Hello! Jedi!"

"Fascinating," she replied, gazing at the arguing pair. "They wanted me to stay with them. For good. They offered me...a home."

"She is _so _Vulcan! She meditates!"

"What did you say? I mean, you're on the jet..."

"So do Jedi!"

Tapered fingers intertwined with his green ones and rested on his thigh. Her words wandered up through her hair to his ears. "I told them I have a home."

The corner of his lip twitched. He pulled the seashell, his new companion, out of his pocket and placed it in her hand. His fingers traced the lines in her palm around it. "It's real, isn't it?"

"Mmmm-hmmmmmm," she hummed in reply, burying her face deeper into his shoulder. His arm snaked around hers as he sank back into the seat, just breathing in her scent as he felt the T-Jet shriek into the sky.

"Jedi!"

"Vulcan!"

"Jedi!"

Gar shook his head as he listened to the debate and studied the ceiling of the jet. He had found her. The first part of his task was complete.

"So," he whispered to her, "ever hear of a little thing called the _Arjh-no-ree_?"

FINIS

A/N:

I hope you enjoyed the story! Please leave a review and let me know what you think. The next story, _Nadir_, has been posted and is ready for you to read. The _Arjh-no-ree_ will become clear soon, as we find out the story behind Raven's backstory in part 4 and part 5. Thanks for sticking with me.


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